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PASTE, 

OR DIAMONDS? 
FONTLUCE 


TWO STORIES 


LEON DE TINSEAU 




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PASTE, 

OR DIAMONDS? 


FONTLUCE 

TWO STOhlES 
2 *^'' ’ by 

LEON DE TINSEAU 


Specially translated from the French for 
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PASTE, OR DIAMONDS? 


I. 

Joanne’s guide-book is an entertaining 
volume, although it is somewhat ‘wanting in 
sustained interest. Apart from that it teaches 
many things' that one has not the time to study 
up elsewhere: history, geography, architecture, 
political economy, theology, navigation, to say 
nothing of the art of avoiding blisters. Not only 
does it act as mentor for the sights that you catch 
glimpses of through the window of your sleeping- 
car, but it also describes those which you miss 
seeing, and which, alas! are the most interesting 
and most numerous. 

Were it not for this useful companion the trav- 
eler would never suspect, as he rattles through 
the darkness of a tunnel beneath the last spur of 
^ the Cantal Mountains, that overhead lie a mag- 
nificent landscape and the ruins of the historical 
Castle of Vitrac. Still less could he be supposed 
to know that Enguerrand de Vitrac accompanied 

( 3 ) 


4 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Raymond de Toulouse to the Holy Land, and 
that this mansion sent forth many illustrious 
personages : a grand-commander of the Knights 
of Rhodes under Charles VI., a Pope in the fif- 
teenth century, a little after this an admiral 
who turned Turk, a governor of Auvergne under 
his majesty Louis XIII., an abbess of Chelles, a 
lady of honor who cost Madame de Montespan 
many a sleepless night, to say nothing of charac- 
ters who have made less noise in the world. 

In one of the earlier editions the notice that 
I speak of concluded with these words, that have 
since been suppressed: Family extinct. The 
mistake, it is true, was one that was amply 
balanced by another, for at this day hundreds 
of families are rolling through the streets in their 
blazoned equipages and parading their titles in 
the salons that are as extinct as the coldest vol- 
cano in Auvergne. The Vitracs were in exist- 
ence in 1875, but that existence was so faint that 
the “Guide Joanne” may be pardoned for its 
error. 

They were to be found in those days, not at 
court— which was not altogether their fault— but 
behind the wire lattice of an office, in the person 
of a tall, pale young man, very good-looking and 
more timid still, wearing that look of complete 
isolation that stamps those who have nothing, 
and, from indolence or from disinterestedness — 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


5 


frequently from both causes combined — wait for 
old age to come to them without any hope of ever 
being any better off. 

This young man was Kene de Vitrac, the last 
of his house, as alone in the world as if he had 
been a foundling, and, in certain respects, less 
favored. He used to say, with a bitterness in 
which there was a little too much resignation : 
“ If I had come from the poofhouse there might 
at least be some chance of finding rich rela- 
tions !” 

It was not at all likely that his relatives would 
ever have been rich, but that was a thing that he 
could not have reproached them with, even had 
he wished to do so, for he had lost them in early 
childhood, and the last descendant of a race so 
noble that it was almost princely had entered life 
under such auspices that charitable souls had 
looked at him and said: “Poor little fellow. It 
would be a great mercy if God would take him.” 

Others beside the Vitracs have had to suffer 
thus in this pleasant land of Prance. Time does 
its work, particularly when it is assisted by the 
guillotine and a few sound laws, intelligently 
administered, regulating the property of the pro- 
scribed. Only let fatality take a hand in the 
game, let a steward amass a fortune too rapidly, 
an uncle put off dying too long, a banker find it 
necessary to take a trip abroad, or a young mar- 


6 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

quis take it into his head to become a worshiper 
of the fair sex, and the usefulness of the Guide 
Joanne” is at once manifested in its full extent. 
There remains a ruin, with these words : Excur- 
sion recommended. But who ever thinks of 
making the excursion? Not even the party in 
interest, and such was the case with Rene de 
Yitrac. From his third to his twelfth year an 
old cure, who drank nothing but water and wore 
a hair shirt, preached to him of the nothingness 
of human greatness, which was not very differ- 
ent from preaching to a convert. After that, 
when the holy man had gone to receive the re- 
ward of his virtues above, our young ascetic was 
sent to school, and there they fed him so gener- 
ously that his daily fare, compared to that which 
he had left, seemed to him like an orgy. God’s 
name was mentioned less frequently, and he had 
not to serve mass so often ; but, on the other hand, 
it was demonstrated to him algebraically, until 
he was eighteen, that the nobles in general and 
the Yitracs in particular had been responsible for 
certain disagreeable incidents that happened to- 
ward the close of the last century. They made 
him understand that if France still continued to 
exist, in spite of their teeth and claws, it was be- 
cause she was very hard to kill. 

Poor Yitrac came out of it all at sea, his mind 
confused, bereft of all his pride and inherited 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


7 


tradition ; in that condition of moral prostration, 
in a word, that a man finds his physical frame 
in when he has been subjected to a course of 
purging, succeeded by one of bleeding. He 
was wondering affrightedly, not only where he 
was to get something to eat, but even what 
earthly use he was to his country, when the 
Prussian guns gave him an answer to the two- 
fold question that he was trying to solve. He 
fought very well, but without being able to rid 
himself of his deplorable timidity. When, in the 
midst of a hot fight, his comrades called to him : 
“Bravo, Vitrac!” or “Take care, you will be 
killed!” he would blush up to his eyes, like a 
little servant-girl just in from the country who 
has smashed the crockery on the sideboard. 

One day, during a charge, his colonel was so 
thoughtless as to say to him : 

“Vitrac, my boy, come to my tent to-night 
before I send in my report.” 

He was so upset that all at once he found him- 
self — the Lord only knows how it happened — in 
the midst of a crowd of people who were perfect 
strangers to him and who wound up by carrying 
him off with them, his horse having been killed 
under him and his saber broken off close up to 
the hilt. 

He lost his corporal’s stripes for that time; but 
he got a deep wound in the shoulder, for which 


8 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


he received treatment in a German hospital, with 
German barbarity, of course. When he got back 
to France he was put on half-pay, which was 
pretty near the same thing as telling him he 
might go starve, seeing that he was quite un- 
acquainted with business methods and did not 
know how to set about asking for anything for 
himself. It was extremely fortunte for him that 
a captain, whose acquaintance he had made in 
the Prussian hospital, got him a place in the 
Ti»easury, for if he could not handle a musket 
he could at least hold a pen, thank Heaven ! 

• It was not long before this smasher of sabers 
showed himself to be a model quill-driver, and so 
rapid was his advancement that in five years he 
had reached the transfer office of the Bourse, 
with a salary of two hundred and fifty francs a 
month and the good-will of his superiors. He 
was informed, too, that it would be a long time 
before he could look for any further promotion ; 
but he was so little spoiled by his good fortune 
that it never occurred to him to regard himself 
as an object of pity. He had all to say in his 
office, where the sous-chef did not shov/ his face 
twice a week, and had a man under him, a mere 
understrapper, whose birth and intelligence were 
on a par and whose constant efforts to be funny 
would have reduced a Newton or a Descartes to 
imbecility. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 9 

The room where these two jail-birds of the ad- 
ministration spent their days was a sort of recess 
in the thick walls of the entablature of the Bourse, 
something like those mysterious receptacles that 
used to be ’concealed in the nooks and corners of 
the old mail coaches. The low ceiling seemed 
lower still to one who had the immense dimen- 
sions of the other rooms of the building fresh in 
his mental vision, so that any one who came in 
there, particularly if it was his first visit, invol- 
untarily ducked his head. There was a panto- 
mime that Larceveau, the under-clerk, enjoyed 
hugely and repeated twice every day, at morning 
and afternoon ; it consisted in going to his desk, . 
bent over as if he were walking along the galler- 
ies of a mine. 

The general public, moreover, did not greatly 
frequent this hole-in-the-wall, where scarcely any 
were ever seen but stockbrokers’ boys coming 
to bring or to take away packages of bonds that 
had changed ownership. In summer time the 
last of the Vitracs spent eight hours of his life 
there daily, and during this season they were 
able to dispense with gas for a while about noon, 
except on rainy days. In winter, however, he 
used to linger until quite late in the evening, for 
the sake of the warmth of the furnace, that Lar- 
ceveau kept heaped with coals. On one occasion 
he could not muster up courage to wade through 


10 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


the snow and slush, ankle-deep, in order to reach 
the bouillon Duval and subsequently his garret 
bedroom in the Batignolles, and he remained all 
night, dinnerless. He was so delighted with this 
ingenious idea that he would doubtless have re- 
peated it ; but, unluckily, one of the watchmen 
discovered him and told, and Vitrac had to go 
before his chief and prove to him that it was not 
his intention to run off with the safe, which al- 
ways held bonds to the amount of two or three 
millions. 

The view that presented itself to his eyes, 
whenever he raised them from his books, em- 
braced one of the capitals of the colonnade; and 
even of that he could see but a portion, owing to 
the narrowness of the window and the nearness 
of the object. This was not a very broad larr''.- 
scape for a man who should by rights have been 
living in a chateau from which he might have 
counted with the naked eye the steeples of nine- 
teen villages; but this, happily, was a circum- 
stance that he was not aware of. When he had 
been there a year he could read his capital as the 
husbandman reads the sky. He would say to Lar- 
ceveau : “ The capital is sweating, we shall have 
rain to-morrow,” or else: have scarcely ever 

seen the atmosphere as clear as it is this morning. 
I could have counted the straws in the swallow’s 
nest up there.” When the weather was fine 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 11 

Larceveau would get out a marine-glass from 
liis drawer and focus it on the acanthus leaves 
with feigned ecstasies of admiration, and this 
joke, that he repeated over and over, seemed to 
him the very essence of wit. 

As regards Vitrac, one last stroke will depict 
the progressive decay of his intellect: he was be- 
ginning to laugh at X.arce^eau’s sallies! This 
Bohemian, moreover, was the only human being 
to whom he could look for an opportunity to 
laugh. Vitrac had not a single male friend, 
and only one female friend, an entirely platonic 
one at that, in the person of the young woman 
who waited on him every evening at the “ bouil- 
lon.” But she did not make him laugh; she 
frightened him a little with her gentle way and 
her great honest eyes in which dwelt the eternal 
Who knows? that one reads in the look of cer- 
tain blonde women. Through exchanging a 
remark with her between each of his courses, 
which made two remarks daily, he soon le^Irned 
that she was married and devotedly attached to 
her husband and her duties. He invariably 
treated her with the lofty politeness that had 
come down to him as a relic from the good old 
days, without his being aware that he had it — 
like his castle. He did not know the name of 
her husband, but had arranged matters so that 
she should know his; he seemed to dine with 


12 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


better appetite when human lips had uttered the 
two syllables that rendered him somewhat less 
impersonal. 

“ Consomme plain, Monsieur de Vitrac, or 
with noodles?” 

If you but knew the effect produced by the 
lack of human intercourse when it bears down 
with its accursed weight upon a weak soul and 
crushes it! You are astonished at the low tastes 
of a certain man, another degmdes himself in 
your eyes by his cynicism. You think, there- 
fore, that they are rushing headlong to the 
depths of vice? Not a bit of it; what they are 
after is to hear themselves addressed by name 
now and then. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


13 


11 . 

W HEN he had been some months in the trans- 
fer office, Vitrac was greatly surprised upon 
turning around in his chair one day to see his 
little wicket filled, in a very agreeable manner, 
by the upper extremity of a well-dressed woman’s 
body. The lady, also, manifested some astonish- 
ment at seeing a young and good-looking man 
behind the wire network. For the last six 
months’ attention to her business interests had 
led her to make many visits to cages similar to 
this one, and never had she seen them inhabited 
by such pretty birds. 

The business to which Madame Rose Lepiez, 
whose maiden name was Courteplisse, but who 
was better known under a theatrical pseudonym, 
was now devoting her energies consisted in the 
management of an inheritance of six hundred 
thousand francs that she had received recently 
and that had caused her a world of trouble. 
Some country cousins, especially when they are 
poor and burdened with children, can never see 
quite clearly the influence that the love of art 
and the admiration of beauty may exercise in 
determining the last will and testament of a 


14 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

bachelor uncle. Eose, therefore, had to go be- 
fore the courts and satisfy justice that the tes- 
tator, who was the Baron Sabart while he was 
yet alive, was sound in mind and body and not 
subjected to any undue influence when he be- 
queathed his property to the great artist whose 
presence on the stage, ten or twelve years before, 
had been considered necessary to insure the suc- 
cess of a spectacle. This might not have been 
such an easy thing to do, if certain persons were 
to be believed, if the Sabarts of the collateral 
branches, who were no barons, but only simple 
bourgeois in Angouleme, had had money to pay 
their lawyer with. The poor devils were so poor 
that they washed their clothes and hung them to 
dry in their drawing-rodm from lack of means 
to hire a laundress. A plum of a hundred thou- 
sand francs, tossed to them at the proper mo- 
ment, served to shut their mouths and fill their 
stomaches, and Rose, triumphant, occupied the 
enemy’s position, an exploit which she had ac- 
complished many times before. 

A feeling of distrust, that I should hate to 
consider well-founded, against men of business, 
and a thorough knowledge of the politeness of 
clerks in government offices, were among the 
acquisitions that she made in the course of this 
short but bitter contest. Distrust proved to be 
the master passion with her, however, and so 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


15 


she devoted the hours that had formerly been 
dedicated to her devotions and to preparations 
for approaching age to personal attention to her 
affairs. What she had to do on the day in ques- 
tion was to have transferred in her name a bond 
for fifteen thousand francs of French rente, the 
finest jewel of her now crown. After having 
set her lawyer to watch her notary and her 
broker to watch her lawyer, she was now sub- 
jecting the latter to the vigilance of the transfer 
office, that is to say, of Vitrac. 

If the young man^s good looks bad impressed 
her favorably, his distinguished manner and his 
politeness quite confounded her. Do not under- 
stand me to say that Sabart’s manner was not 
distinguished ; it was as much so as could fairly 
be expected from a gentleman whose nobility 
only dated back seventeen years, to the days of 
Louis Philippe. As for his politeness, his will 
indicates sufficiently what that was. And then 
Pose Lepiez’s relations with the aristocracy were 
not confined to Sabart alone; everything in the 
v/ay of salute that a woman in her position could 
look for she had received from men of the very 
highest standing, from the ceremonious doffing of 
the hat to the more familiar shake of the riding- 
whip; but for the first time in her life — and she 
owned up to being thirty -Lvo j^ears old ! — Vitrac 
caused her a thrill of delight by saluting her as 


16 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


though she were a great lady. It was true that 
the poor fellow had no other kind of salutes in 
his repertory ; he was not often called on to pro- 
duce them. 

The gallant bureaucrat offered her his fauteuil, 
having first beaten up the cushion with an air of 
antique courtliness that one could not have failed 
to recognize a league off. He himself stood, from 
motives of respect in the first place, and also be- 
cause he did not dare to take possession of the 
only other unoccupied chair, which belonged to 
Larceveau, who was out just then, but was likelj" 
to come in at any moment. ‘ Then, in presence 
of the capital that was harmoniously gilded by 
the rays of the declining sun, the marquis and 
the actress conversed; but in quite a different 
strain, it must be confessed, from the usual con- 
versation between marquises and actresses. They 
were both a little diffident, one because the situa- 
tion was too familiar to her, the other because it 
was too novel to him, and yet it was not Vitrac 
who was first to regain his presence of mind, al- 
though he did most of the talking. 

Rose devised means of taking a quarter of an 
hour to obtain information that should not have 
required three minutes. When the audience 
came to an end : 

“Monsieur,” said she, “thanks to you, I now 
have the whole thing right at my finger-ends. It 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 17 

is a wicked thing to muddle a poor woman who 
has no one to protect her, and there are plenty of 
people who have done it to me. I wonder why 
it is that I listen to you as if you were my bro- 
ther, with my eyes shut, when I am generally so 
distrustful ! ” 

“Madame,” replied Vitrac, “I have never de- 
ceived a living being. Only—” He stopped as 
if horrified by the enormity- of what he was 
about to say, but Rose never liked to have any 
one stop half-way. 

“Only?” she repeated insistingly. 

“ Only if that is the way that you shut your 
eyes, I would like to see them when they are 
wide open.” 

This must be an example of what the novelists 
call atavism, Vitrac saying pretty things just as 
birds fly, without ever having been taught. Ho 
doubt it was to be credited to some remote ances- 
tor who had been famous for his gallantry in his 
day. - 

It was an agreeable sensation to be talking to 
a woman who had some style about her, that is 
to say, an hotel and money invested in the rentes. 
Had it been a few years sooner no one knows 
what might have come of it; a neatly turned 
compliment would cause Rose to lose her head in 
those days when the author of it was a hand- 
some young fellow like Vitrac; but she reflected 


18 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


that a wo^nan must not show all that she thinks 
when she has a carriage and pair waiting for her 
in the street. She, arose, very gracious still, with 
the stately condescension of a great lad}^ to whom 
her time is of no moment. It was to be seen 
that she was not offended, however, for she 
asked : 

“How can I address you if 1 should need 
any further information about these wretched 
bonds?” 

The young man took a card and on it simply 
scribled Rene de Vitrac, Palais de la Bourse^ 
and handed it to Rose. She read the name, gave 
the clerk another look, folded the card and placed 
it in her bosom. Another case of atavism ! It 
is morally certain that the Courteplisses had had 
a soubrette among them at some time in the past. 
He saw her to the door and took leave of her 
upon the landing-place, where she swept aside 
the dust with the black lace of her half-mourn- 
ing. Larceveau returned from his absence an 
hour later, but during that hour I would not 
take it on myself to say which of the two was 
the more absent, Vitrac pr Larceveau. 

The former was about to tell his comrade of 
the unusual honor that the office had received, 
but refrained, knowing from experience the 
pleasantries to which he would be compelled to 
listen. He could stand Larceveau’s puns at a 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


19 


pinch, but his manner of speaking of women was 
more than he could endure. Besides, he would 
have had to confess that the unknown had not 
told her name, and this reserve, that was de- 
cidedly to the advantage of the visitor, slightly 
diminished the interest of the visit. Finally, 
this young dreamer — for he had become a dream- 
er all at once — felt a desire to keep his secret to 
himself, unimportant as it was. At first he 
dreamed without knowing exactly of what, then, 
when his friend in the lace cap at the “ bouillon” 
that evening commented on his preoccupied air, 
he felt sure that he must be in love, and that 
another victim must be credited to the fell de- 
stroyer. It was a fact that he did not sleej) that 
night, and the long hours were spent in summon- 
ing up the recollection of each of those fifteen 
minutes, which were quite unlike any other min- 
utes of his life — at least that was his opinion. 

Still, when he thought of the lady of the 
bonds, it was not her mouth that appeared be- 
fore his vision — a, rather large mouth it was, 
with extremely red lips that were wise enough 
now to conceal the pearls in the casket, just as, 
in days gone by, they knew enough to display 
them. Neither was it her eyes, that he had so 
admired, that he beheld; bold, black eyes, where 
the hand of art was visible, a little hard frorn 
their contrast with the yellow hair— that was 


20 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


what he beheld, that hair! What a rare shade! 
He saw the bonnet that covered those tresses, a 
mere nothing, but it is an easier thing to shape 
a woman from a block of marble than it is to 
cover a living woman’s head with one of those 
nothings. He saw the satin of her corsage, the 
velvet of her mantle, the lace of her skirt, the 
preternatural polish of her little shoe, and the 
sudden flash of the pink silk that covered her 
ankle. 

What really charmed him in this stranger was 
not her person, but the sumptuousness of her at- 
tire ; for every morning of his life he met legions 
of grisettes who were younger and prettier and 
fully as well disposed ; but these sisters in pov- 
erty reminded him too much of what he had to 
suffer himself, some by their virtuous indigence, 
others by their shameless display of tawdry finery. 
Eose, on the other hand, gave him a taste of that 
luxury in which the race from which he was de- 
scended had rolled for centuries. It was like a 
vague and indistinct vision of a lost fatherland, 
and that which he took to be the dreamy musing 
of a lover was only the homesickness of an exile. 

A few days of this brought about a diminution 
of his courage and elasticity of temper. His 
poverty weighed more heavily upon him, and 
for the first time in his life he revolted against 
the injustice of his destiny. His few miserable 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


21 


pleasures seemed to him so many bitter mock- 
eries. The interest that his friend at the “ bouil- 
lon” evinced for him appeared to him supremely 
ridiculous, shared as it was by twenty others 
^vho were undergoing their daily regimen of 
poison. To cap the climax, Larceveau’s puns 
grated on his ears as the very embodiment of 
human stupidity. 

Having taken this first step in the downward 
path of despondency, he began to wonder whether 
life was such an unmixed benefit after all, and 
whether, as everything seemed to indicate, his 
own was to be consumed in staring at a Corin- 
thian capital eighteen meters above the level of 
the asphalt. What would his thoughts have 
been, unhappy man ! had he known the wages 
that Rose paid her coachman ! 

As a matter of course, he had asked himself a 
hundred times who might be the bright stranger 
that had come upon the scene to disturb his hum- 
ble repose; but comparisons were wanting to en- 
able him to answer this question. Place a dia- 
mond in the hands of a charcoal-burner of the 
Ardennes and ask him to tell whether the glitter- 
ing object came from Brazil or from the Cape — 
or from a factory of paste jewels. Vitrac had 
seen enough of the world to know that there are 
two classes of elegantes^ and that it is generally 
not an easy matter to distinguish between them ; 


22 


PASTE^ OR DIAMONDS ? 


but he had never set his foot in a salon or a bou- 
doir, and that for several reasons, one of which 
was of sutficient force to render the enumeration 
of the others unnecessary. 

He had a vague intuition, however, that led 
him to suspect that the lady of the bonds did 
not belong to the very best society, but he was 
very, very far from supposing that she belonged 
to the worst. All her conversation during her 
visit to him had been of wills and marriage con- 
tracts, and are not those things indices of re- 
spectability, if not of virtue? All one Sunday, 
did Yitrac devote to a search for his fair un- 
known, and gave it up, partly from fatigue, 
partly from indolence. It should be mentioned 
that he was not quite certain that he had not 
caught sight of her in the Bois, where he had 
been just as the people were coming in from the 
races ; for a dozen times he had started at behold- 
ing a dozen bonnets, a dozen pair of black eyes 
and a dozen yellow wigs that reminded him so 
strongly of her that he would have sworn that it 
was she. 

He came back to Paris with a fearful head- 
ache and also with an indigestion — a moral 
indigestion, you must understand. Did it ever 
occur to you in your tender years to devour 
many slices of the twelfth-night cake in an he- 
roic effort that was destined to be fruitless? 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


23 


Unhappy Vitrac, too, had gorged himself, and 
he was not sure that he had not swallowed the 
bean. 


III. 

Rose Lepiez was still thinking of her ycnith- 
ful admirer when she re-entered her own domi- 
cile, that is to say, Sabart’s domicile, although 
the abode of the defunct was at the end of the 
world, at Passy, in the Rue de la Faisauderie. 
It is worth mentioning that even so soon as that 
she had made up her mind to do a silly thing for 
Vitrac’s sake; but fortunately she found a visitor 
waiting for her, and was deterred from writing 
the letter that she had concocted on her way 
home. The Lord only knows what Vitrac would 
be to-day if those few lines had only been writ- 
ten and found their way to the letter-box. 

Befor she fell asleep that night her mind was 
again concentrated upon the momentous projects 
that had taken up their abode there ‘ever since 
her affairs had begun to turn out well. These 
projects may be summed up in a few words : she 
wished to be addressed as Madame la Comtesse — 
and to be a comtesse as well. 

Like a prudent woman she had said nothing 


34 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

to any one of her flattering predilection for the 
aristocracy, for she wished to make her selection 
with a cool head, and not buy a pig in a poke, or 
a cat in a bag, as some of her friends had done. 
She intended that her cat should be one that 
would hunt for mice and not for fortunes exclu- 
sively, and there were several reasons why a 
cat’s presence was not absolutely necessary in 
the house just at that time. 

Matters were in this shape when her visit to 
the transfer office had brought her within two 
steps of her destruction. On the morrow of that 
eventful day the future comtesse’s chambermaid 
picked up from the carpet a bit of paper that had 
fallen there some hours previously, certainly from 
some other quarter than the moon. She un- 
folded it, smoothed it out upon her knee, read 
it as if that was a portion of her daily task, and 
when she saw that it was an address put it care- 
fully aside. 

“ If madame takes the trouble to secure a gen- 
tleman’s name, and his street and number,” she 
thought, “ madame must have good reasons for 
doing so.” . 

However good — or bad — these reasons may 
have been, the address rested quietly in its 
hiding-place until the day came when it was 
brought to light by a friend of the house who 
was possessed by a rage of poking his nose into 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


25 


everything. You need not expect that I am go- 
ing to tell whether he had any right to do this 
or not ! 

This honest man— for he was an honest man : 
they are still to be found here and there — was 
worth a snug little fortune. Unfortunately, he 
was a father, which caused him some trouble 
about making his will ; and as for making any- 
body a comtesse, the thing would have been still 
more difficult for him, seeing that his only title 
was that of consulting notary. His name was 
Flamel, and it is hardly to be credited that he did 
not insist upon claiming relationship with the 
illustrious Nicolas, the king of the alchemists; 
still, whenever some flatterer decided the ques- 
tion affirmatively in his presence, he maintained 
a discreet silence and blushed with delight. 

The only complaint that could by any possibil- 
ity have been alleged against him was that he 
showed rather too much attention to Rose, but 
had you taken him to task for this he would have 
replied : 

“ I am a widower, and in all Paris you will 
not And a daughter that has been more carefully 
brought up than mine. In the second place, I 
was notary to Sabart who is dead and gone, then 
his friend, and, as a natural consequence, the 
friend of the woman who was his dearest friend. 
Finally, this young woman has a mind of her 


26 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


own, she is a charming creature, and I don’t 
know where to go to get a better dinner than she 
gives me. I may say in addition that I am a 
notary and not a monk ; I swore that I would be 
honest, and I have kept my oath, but as for the 
other oaths, your very humble servant ! I should 
never have thought that I would keep them as 
well as I have.” 

One cannot be at the head of one of the great 
law offices of Paris for a quarter of a century 
without knowing something of the nobility, 
and all this knowledge was at Flamel’s finger- 
ends, for he had a passion for genealogy. For 
all that, however, the mystification that he ex- 
perienced as he read De Yitrac’s address had 
nothing genealogical about it. He shoved the 
paper under Pose’s nose and asked with some 
asperity : 

‘‘Who is this young man?” 

“ How do you know that he is a young man?” 
replied the ex-diva, not the least bit disconcerted. 

“ Oh, of course, he is a centenarian. But what 
is his business, anyway?” 

“ I believe that he is at the Bourse.” 

A boursier! Nice answer, that, to soothe the 
nerves of Rose’s friend ! The old notary grum- 
bled between his teeth. 

“ I’ll bet that his name is no more De Vitrac 
than mine is. It is the fashion nowadays for 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 27 

these plutocrats of the curb to sail under false 
names.” 

“You needn’t be afraid; he is no plutocrat,” 
the artless one answered, for she chanced to be 
in an exceptionally good-humor that day. “ Ho 
is a poor man. He is a petty clerk in one of the 
offices of the Bourse, where my business took 
mo the other day, and probably gets about three 
hundred francs a month.” 

Flamel was appeased in an instant, for he 
was accustomed to these alarms that always 
came to nothing. 

“In that case,” he said, “he must be a real 
Vitrac. And if he is a Vitrac, he is a marquis. 
But I thought that the family was extinct.” 

Rose’s eyes sparkled and she became very ab- 
sent, so much so that Flamel thought that she 
was provoked with him for his curiosity. When 
he reached his house in the Chaussee d’Autin, of 
which he occupied the first floor, Madame Lepiez 
had not yet recovered from her abstraction. She. 
soon emerged from it, however, and ringing for 
her maid, who knew how to spell and wrote a 
splendid hand — education is becoming more and 
more diffused, thank Heaven! — dictated to her 
this note: 

“Madame Veuve Lepiez, nee De Courteplisse, 
would be greatly obliged to M. Rene de Vitrac 


28 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


if he would have the kindness to call on her to- 
morrow afternoon about six o’clock to give her 
additional information. 

‘‘A thousand distinguished remembrances.” 

• When the happy mortal whom Rose had thus 
“ distinguished ” made his appearance at the 
Bourse next morning, he found the office reeking 
with a perfume that was not unknown to him. 
At the same time Larceveau handed him an en- 
velope and exclaimed : 

“ I say, De Vitrac, I wish you would give me 
that when you have read it, so that I may put 
it away with my shirts. Take care, my dear 
fellow, it is a lettre de sachet ! You will go to 
the Bastille, the Bastille, the pretty woman’s 
Bastille — ” 

So the torrent ran on for some little time. 
Vitrac was so delighted with his letter that he 
did not even hear it. He read it over a second 
time, in agreeable perplexity. Was not the in- 
formation that she spoke of merely a blind? 

“ Alas !” he thought, “ it must have been the 
truth that she wrote ; she would not have waited 
a whole week to give me an invitation otherwise. 
She is free to do as she pleases, her husband be- 
ing dead. And yet, what further explanations 
can she want? Well, a few hours now will clear 
matters up.” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


29 


He put the letter in his pocket, much to Lar- 
ceveau’s indignation. 

“I show you all that I receive of that kind,” 
said that person. 

Vitrac took him up with a rather supercilious 
smile * 

“ Of the same kind ! Oh ! not exactly.” 

Larceveau pretended to be offended and to 
treat him as a dude, but he was really impressed 
by this reticence that he felt was designed to 
shield a “woman of society,” that mythical per- 
son that is the object of so many dreams. Be- 
sides, he had examined the address, for he had 
made a study of graphiology, and at the very 
first glance he had recognized the writing of 
an exalted, impassioned lady who had lived in 
splendor from her cradle. 

Vitrac left the office earlier than usual, for he 
had to go home and change his clothes. At the 
appointed hCur he was in the Rue de la Faisau- 
derie, where the dress-coated gentleman whom 
he met upon the steps of the hotel taxed his per- 
spicacity to the utmost. The belief is current in 
the clerkly world, and even among literary men, 
that knee-breeches and aiguillettes are the dis- 
tinctive badges of service among the upper ten. 
The dress-coat, luckily, came forward to meet 
the newcomer with intentions that were not to 
be mistaken. Vitrac resigned his overcoat with 


30 


PASTE, on DIAMONDS? 


firmness, although at that moment he tasted the 
bitterness of having to confide to a pampered 
menial the secret distresses of a lining that had 
seen too long service. 

But he would have need of all his faculties for 
other and still more difficult trials. He must 
make a good entree^ and, above all, be careful 
not to make an awkward exit. Though inex- 
perienced, he was not ignorant, for he had read 
Feuillet, to say nothing of other less famous 
authors; and he knew that a pretty woman’s 
drawing-room is a sea filled with shoals, among 
which one must steer his course dexterously and 
gracefully. Like all Frenchmen of his age, he 
shared the opinion of Jacques de Lerne, and felt 
that the disgrace of an “Adieu! — Fool!” uttered 
by a pretty mouth is to be wiped out only by 
suicide. The poor fellow had said to himself, 
as he plodded along his way: 

“Alas! what middle course must I take, so 
that she shall not consider me a stupid dunce or 
a chattering fool, although of these two crimes 
I know which the unpardonable one would be; 
all the authors agree on that. But conscience ! 
What a difference there is between theory and 
practice! Ah! how much better it would be for 
me if she only had her mother with her, or some 
children — the first time!” 

Rose had no children with her, for the very. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


31 


best of reasons. As to her mother, the good 
woman had not shown her face in the drawing- 
room for years; for the former actress, it must 
be confessed, got herself up in a fearful and 
wonderful way. Vitrac felt his confidence re- 
turning to him with the first step that he took in 
the vast apartment, where the gaudy display of 
the Sabarts did its best to harmonize with FlamePs 
more subdued, elegance; he even judged that he 
was too confident, so true is it that we always 
think that we must have something to find fault 
with. He had. difficulty in recognizing the radi- 
ant vision of his office in this severely serious 
woman, who, clad in somber habiliments that 
might have induced one to believe that old 
Sabart had died a second time that morning, 
was industriously knitting away for some poor 
children’s charity by the light of her single 
lamp. At least she held her work in her lap, 
with a pair of long steel needles that were as 
bright and threatening as bayonets; but Vitrac 
might have congratulated himself on the charm 
of his conversation, for neither on that day nor 
on any other did he see the work advanced by a 
single stitch. 

“Take a seat, sir,” said the lady, without 
offering him her hand, “and excuse me for hav- 
ing troubled you to come here. It is your own 
fault. You are so kind, and so well informed 


32 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


on all the questions that are worrying me to 
death. And then the lawyers think of nothing 
but how to feather their own nests when they 
have to deal with a woman like me, all alone in 
the world and just come into possession of a 
great fortune. Will you continue to give me 
the benefit of your advice?” 

Vitrac made answer that his advice did not 
amount to very much, which was modest and at 
the same time quite true. He added that she 
was welcome to it, such as it was; and without 
further palaver a conversation commenced that 
fairly bristled with figures. When the clock 
struck seven Rose Lepiez’s adviser had given 
her no additional advice, but he knew to a cen- 
time the amount of his fair client’s fortune and 
what it consisted of: So much for the hotel in 
the Rue de la Faisauderie, so much for the leased 
premises in the Rue Saint-Denis, so much for a 
little place in the neighborhood of Beaune, with 
its vineyard; so much in the rentes^ in railway 
shares, in undertakings of various kinds— grand 
total, in round figures, eight hundred thousand 
francs. Vitrac knew what he had to depend 
upon. 

No mention was made in this inventory of 
some very handsome jewels with which Sabart 
had had nothing to do, any more than he had 
with the house in the Rue Saint-Denis, and a 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


33 


portion of the securities that figured among the 
assets. Rose was like a good Christian; she 
did not mean that her right hand should know 
what her left had received; but it is quite 
probable that she brought home with her some- 
thing more substantial than bouquets after tread- 
ing so long the theatrical boards. Be that as it 
may, she was level-headed enough to keep her 
mouth shut as to the derivation of this property 
and let it all stand to the credit of the generos- 
ity of the deceased. 

“You were a near relative of his?” Vitrac 
innocently asked. 

“Oh, that is a long story,” said Rose, putting 
as much tenderness as she was mistress of into 
her smile. “I will tell you all about it presently 
over our dessert, for you are going to dine with 
me. There won’t be anything romantic about 
it, situated as we are.” 


34 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


IV. 

She rang the bell; the dress-coat made his 
appearance. 

“Florimond, a place for monsieur.” 

“Very well, madame.” 

All as easy and off-hand as possible. Vitrac 
thought that it must be a pleasant thing to be 
rich and able to ask a friend to dinner now and 
then without having to count and see how much 
money you have in your pocket; but when he 
came to take his place at table he saw that the 
word “dinner,” like many other words, has dif- 
ferent meanings in different places. 

It must be said to his credit that the pleasures 
of the table did not occupy a very high place in 
his imagination. If he had had to choose be- 
tween Rose’s good cheer served upon the marble 
table of the “bouillon” and the fare of the 
“bouillon” served in Rose’s dining-room, he 
would not have hesitated a moment in selecting 
the second of these alternatives. 

But that he should have the two united! The 
liquid gold of the consomme in the dazzling 
enamel of the porcelain! The truffled partridge 
on its plate of silver! And old Sabart’s wine 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


35 


— he was a connoisseur, and no mistake!— in 
glasses of crystal with a thousand glittering 
facets! And he, himself, Yitrac, sitting there 
in a luxurious chair in front of a mass of marvel- 
ous orchids ! There was but one point on which 
he was a little regretful. The repast was ended. 
The servants had retired, leaving upon the table 
the coffee, several kinds of liqueurs, cigars of dif- 
erent shades, and the inevitable lighted wax-can- 
dle in its little golden holder. The display was a 
little too suggestive of the private supper-room, 
but there were excellent reasons why the thought 
of such a comparison did not occur to the guest. 
What the in grate was privately reflecting upon 
was this: 

‘‘What a pity that she is not ten years younger 
and of a little more jolly disposition!” 

Let the ten years go ; but as for the disposi- 
tion — ! What a misfortune it is to be wanting 
in insight and experience ! 

Yitrac had made no very strenuous resistance 
when he was asked to take a cigar, and now he 
was dwelling reflectively upon the novel aroma 
in order not to lose a particle of its enjoyment, 
just as he had dwelt upon the wines and the 
dishes, so many new acquaintances for him. In 
all Paris you could not have found a man who 
would have better appreciated these good things, 
and Rose, who knew what she was about, de- 


36 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


cided that the time had come for being confi- 
dential. She took an Egyptian cigarette, and 
holding it to the candle: 

“This does not shock you?’’ she inquired. 
“The greatest ladies smoke nowadays — in pri- 
vate, of course.” 

Vitrac made a gesture expressive of his for- 
giveness — in private — of this breach of etiquette. 
She continued with a regretful sigh that had 
more of modesty than of sincerity in it: 

“And then, mon Dieu! I am so terribly far 
from being a great lady!” 

Then, in the most natural manner in the 
world, in fragments, and with the unconscious 
air of a person letting out his secrets without 
being aware of it, she told him the story of 
her life, the expurgated edition, ad usum 
juventutis. 

She had married when very young and was 
happy with the man who had her love; a single 
year had taken from her, first her fortune, then 
her husband, who was unfitted to face calamity. 
She had to live. In her more prosperous days 
she had often been told that she displayed rare 
talent in her delineation of yonxig premiere roles 
upon the amateur boards. When her misfor- 
tunes came upon her she had been urged by her 
best friends to have recourse to the theater, but 
the thought at first had been revolting to her. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 37 

But must not inclination yield to stern neces- 
sity. 

“There came a day,” said she, contemplating 
the smoke of her cigarette with a tragic air, 
“when the stage appeared to me an honorable 
refuge compared with other propositions that 
were whispered in my ear by shameless voices. 
There, for several years, with no other protec- 
tion than that of an aged relative who never 
left me, I earned a modest living; for I must 
confess to you that the brilliant predictions of 
my friends were never realized. I feel that I 
have nothing to complain of. Had I been cele- 
brated, that IS, with a band of suitors always 
about me, might I not, like so many others, have 
yielded to the blandishments of fortune?” 

Yitrac listened to her tale politely, but with a 
sentiment that was the reverse of pleasure. He 
had thought that he was eating the dinner and 
smoking the cigar of a rich, rather ancient 
bourgeoise, an honest woman not troubled with 
prudery, slightly tiresome, but abounding in 
friendly cordiality, while here she turned out to 
be a second-rate actress retired from business. 
He would have understood her better if she had 
shown more animation, extending even to im- 
propriety; if she had been freer in her language 
and gestures, and clad otherwise than in that 
dark dress prudishly buttoned up to the chin. 


38 


PASTE, OPv DIAMONDS ? 


With his limited experience of life he did not 
know what to make of this complex, mixed type. 
Speaking somewhat at random and slightly 
narcotized by the cigar as well as by the length 
of her story, he said : 

“ It must have caused you much suffering to 
have to descend to that.” 

Mme. Lepiez thought that her confidant was 
too ready with his manifestation of pity for her. 
Her eyes flashed with a brightness of a different 
kind, without Vitrac remarking their intensity, 
and her lips were tightly compressed. Looking 
her guest full in the face, she replied : 

“No more than it must have caused you to 
come to where you are, M. le Marquis.” 

The thrust brought Vitrac to his senses, for it 
was the first time in his life that he had been 
addressed by his title, which had at first been 
suppressed through pride and from motives of 
economy, and then forgotten in the indifference 
of his too complete resignation. With curiosity 
rather than with anger, he asked : 

“ How is it that you know what every one is 
ignorant of ? ” 

“ Give me your arm,” said she, rising to return 
to the drawing-room. “I will show you that 
it is not a difficult matter to learn all about the 
De Vitracs.” 

She took from the table an Annuaire de la 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


39 


Noblesse that had had its pages cut in only one 
place, and in a reverential tone, emphasizing 
each fact by a movement of her head, read to 
the young marquis the genealogy of his house, 
from Euguerrand, friend and lieutenant of Ray- 
mond of Toulouse, who laid down his life on the 
plain of Ascalon, down to Louis- Jacques-Rene 
de Vitrac, born April 13, 1853, and now chief 
of the name and last surviving member of the 
family. 

Standing there leaning against the mantel- 
piece, slightly dazed by having been for the last 
three hours upon ground that was entirely novel 
to him, the young man listened as if in a dream 
to the roll-call of all those mighty names. He 
was listening to the faint, far-away echo of this 
glorious tide of achievement that had come to 
die away upon a desert shore, leaving there a 
wreck that hardly could be seen, a name that 
beside the others was small and insignificant: 
his own. 

When the reading came to an end Vitrac 
seemed to hesitate. Would he draw himself up 
and say; “ Well! all is lost, but my honor is left 
me!” or would he cry like a little child? for he 
was scarcely more than a child. He did neither 
of these things, not having the simplicity for the 
latter nor the grandeur for the former. The pure 
blood of his race ran in his veins, but education 


40 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


was lacking; he had no remembrance of ever 
having heard a noble word uttered. He was a 
pessimist, like all the men of his time that he 
had known; but he, at least, had good reason 
for his opinion upon the bitterness of existence. 
He spoke as a pessimist, laughing at himself 
with the mocking tone that would have suited 
a Larceveau : 

“ Louis- Jacques-Rene de Vitrac, a clerk em- 
ployed in the Treasury Department, in the 
transfer office, at the Palais de la Bourse, with 
a salary of a thousand crowns, is proposed for a 
gratuity of one-twelfth,” said he, concluding the 
reader’s extract and imitating her emphatic 
manner. 

Still he was not as cheerful as he affected to be. 
Rose Lepiez noticed it, came to him and took his 
hand. 

“ Have courage !” she said. I did not always 
earn a thousand crowns a year. You are young 
yet; the future is all before you.” 

He was silent. She added rather timidly : 

“ Will it do you any good to know that from 
this time forth you have a friend?” 

Her voice and maimer had suddenly become 
warm, almost affectionate, and Vitrac did not 
have a surfeit in those days of that music that 
is always so sweet to the ears of a man of his 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


41 


age, even when it comes from so rude an instru- 
ment. 

“It does me a great deal of good,” he said, 
squeezing the hand of his 'new friend. “ I thank 
you ; you are very kind !” 

He did feel cheered, truly, but it never oc- 
curred to him that Kose’s dinner and Sabart’s 
wine were largely responsible for this new aspect 
of life. The conversation was resumed on a 
footing of greater intimacy. Vitrac told his story 
in turn, with a sensation of comfort to which 
three circumstances contributed : that there was 
nothing in it that he had to suppress, that he 
had a luxurious chair to tell it in, and that he 
could expatiate as much as he pleased upon his 
theme without having to fear the chaff of a Lar- 
ceveau always looking for a subject for his gibes. 

Rose had called him at the start “M. le Mar- 
quis,” half in joke and half in earnest; then, with 
their rapidly increasing friendliness, he became 
“ My dear Marquis,” and finally plain “ Marquis ;” 
all which slipped from her mouth easily, without 
the least bit of affectation, as from a person ac- 
customed to roll other people’s titles under her 
tongue while waiting for the time when she 
might be able to air her own. As to Vitrac, 
his marquisate was beginning to set as easily 
upon him as if he had bought it and paid for it 
that very morning. 


42 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


About half-past ten Rose pointed to the clock. 
“I shall have to say good-night to you,” she 
said, “for we go to bed early in the country. I 
hope that I shall soon have some good news to 
give you.” 

He smiled, thinking that it was news concern- 
ing her own affairs that his friend had in mind, 
and after they had shaken hands in brotherly 
and sisterly fashion he started off toward the 
entrance of the Bois to catch the train that would 
set him down at the Batignolles. Just as he 
was turning into the avenue a club-cab that was 
coming along at a rapid gait, bearing Flamel 
and his fortunes, came near running over him. 
Yitrac was not curious, and it never occurred to 
him to pause and see where the vehicle would 
stop. He would have been considerably aston- 
ished had he been told the part that was to be 
played in his life by that man who seemed to be 
in such a hurry. 

When Yitrac reached the office next morning 
he wore such a doleful face that Larceveau 
nearly died of laughing. 

“O/i.' la! yelped this disrespectful sub- 
ordinate. “Any one can see that you have been 
carrying the answer to that note that smelled so 
good. What a good time we had, my boys! It 
makes my head swim only to look at you.” 

Yitrac shrugged his shoulders and made no 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 43 

reply, partly from disdain and partly because it 
would have puzzled him to know what to an- 
swer. 

He was in better position than any one to 
know just how delirious the “good time” that 
the other spoke of had been, and yet he felt him- 
self ten times more weary and disgusted than he 
was accustomed to feel on the mornings after his 
infrequent youthful escapades. It was not re- 
morse, for he had not committed the ghost of a 
crime, nor was it love, for since he had seen 
Rose in her own home, in all her majesty of a 
wealthy, but pious, bourgeoise his ridiculous as- 
pirations seemed to have burst and scattered like 
so many soap-bubbles. 

The truth of the matter was that his poverty 
seemed less endurable to him. It had been hard 
enough to bear before, and he had borne it like 
a heavy burden, while now he dragged it after 
him like a ball and chain. It was as if all those 
pleasures that he had tasted the evening before 
had been his by right and something had hap- 
pened to deprive him of them. He sunk beneath 
his discouragement as the ox, tormented by the 
flies, sinks and wallows in his muddy ditch. In 
a few days’ space a change for the worse oc- 
curred in his moral nature; it was evident that 
he was rapidly approaching that point were it is 
not safe to expose a man to temptation. The 


44 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


devil’s business would be in a bad way if he did 
not find some one in whose ear he might whisper 
now and then. 


V. 

No one can say that the world has not made 
some progress since Adam’s time. It was not 
an apple, but a telegraphic dispatch, that served 
to inject the first dose of temptation into Vitrac 
a few days after the events related in the last 
chapter. 

“My dear Marquis,” the dispatch ran, “it 
gives me pleasure to inform you that you are to 
leave that miserable office in the Bourse for a 
more cheerful one in the department. Besides 
that, you will have a thousand francs more sal- 
ary. You see that it is worth while sometimes 
to have A Friend.” 

This powerful patroness failed to add that it is 
worth while to have friends^ and that she had 
some very good ones, to say nothing of those of 
the other description, but it entered into her 
schemes that Vitrac should remain in ignorance 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


45 


of them, with one single exception. These 
friends, moreover, were not even acquainted 
with each other. In well governed prisons some 
hundreds of good Christians listen to the sermon 
every Sunday morning without one of them ever 
seeing the end of his neighbor’s nose, and this — 
if you will pardon me the comparison — was the 
system that our prudent Rose adopted to regu- 
late the relations of these intimacies. 

Vitrac could not very well get out of asking 
permission to go and return thanks for her kind- 
ness, which permission was graciously accorded 
him. As he was flying with grateful footsteps 
to the appointed rendezvous — it was at six 
o’clock in the afternoon, as usual — he reflected 
delightedly upon his wondrous, unhoped-for pro- 
motion, at the same time cudgeling his wits to 
divine in what way, through what influence, 
his blond Egeria had been able to secure it for 
him. His curiosity upon this point, however, 
was destined to remain ungratifled. 

“What odds does it make?” said Egeria. 
“Are you satisfied? Do you believe at least 
that I can be of some service to you? That is 
the main point. My dear Marquis, don’t be like 
those children who are always wanting to rip 
open their doll’s stomach.” 

The young man promised that he would not 
rip open anything, and at the same time accepted 


46 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

Bose’s invitation to dinner. He had donned a 
new suit of clothes for the occasion, and the 
butler had called him “Monsieur le Marquis” 
when he opened the door for him ; but for all 
that Vitrac had a sneaking suspicion that that 
mercenary had shown him less respect than on 
the occasion of their first interview. Excepting 
this there was no difference. The severity of 
Rose’s dress had undergone no mitigation, the 
excellence of the cooking and the flavor of the 
wines had not deteriorated, the great easy-chairs 
were just as luxurious and the carpets just as 
soft to the foot, and both seemed to receive the 
visitor like an old acquaintance. The mistress 
of the house, more sisterly than ever, was losing 
sight of her position so far as to throw in an oc- 
casional word of friendly advice. It was clearly 
her intention to make a man of fashion of 
Vitrac. She would say to him : 

“Don’t be so retiring; people will say that 
you are bashful. Don’t take it ill if I advise 
you to be less old-fashioned. The deuce! you 
are not a lawyer’s clerk; you are the Marquis de 
Vitrac!” 

The marquis did not resent her telling him 
how to behave and criticising the tie of his 
cravat; he felt instinctively that these remarks 
were true and meant for his good. Before the 
evening was ended he was sitting in his chair 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


47 


just as clownishly as the best of them, with his 
hands in his pockets, legs crossed, head thrown 
back, and cigar stuck at an angle in the corner 
of his mouth and vomiting forth clouds of, smoke 
like the funnel of a steamboat. As for Madame 
Lepiez, perhaps Satan may not have been the 
loser by it, but if she had had her bonnet on you 
would have taken her for a lady-patroness on a 
begging tour, a little belated and trying to get 
a contribution in the comfortable quarters of 
some young millionaire. 

Vitrac got his walking-papers a few minutes 
earlier this evening, but he did not insist ur- 
gently to be allowed tb stay. Notwithstanding 
Rose’s youthful looks and the care that she de- 
voted to her appearance, he was forgetting more 
and more how near he had been to losing his 
head on her account in his office. It is true that 
the elegance of the fair stranger had appeared 
doubly captivating when seen relieved against 
the dirt and nakedness of those four wretched 
walls. And then, besides, she had not consid- 
ered it necessary to draw in her claws and show 
the velvet paw that day, as she was doing now. 
She said to the young man, as they were shak- 
ing hands: 

“What a great pity it is that you are not 
double your age! We could have many a 
nice time such as we have had this evening. 


48 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

I am afraid that you found it very stupid, 
though.” 

Vitrac’s answer was polite but not particularly 
enthusiastic. He did not evince any inclination 
to become poetical, but Rose preferred that he 
should be as he was for the present. The hunter 
pursues different methods according as he wants 
his bird for the cage or for the frying-pan. 

On the following day Yitrac said farewell to 
his old armchair, to the capital of his column, 
and to Larceveau, and two days afterward was 
domiciled in the treasury in an office that would 
have been called luxurious compared with the 
one he had left. Less work, more pay, faster 
men for comrades, such was the programme of 
his new life. His acquaintance with the world 
and the manners of the world increased rapidly. 
He had a dress-coat that he intended to wear the 
next time that he dined out, like other gentle- 
men. The occasion was not long in presenting 
itself. The coat, as was no more than right, re- 
ceived its christening in the Rue de la Faisau- 
derie. 

Something happened that evening. In the 
first place Yitrac got a written invitation in due 
form, in the second place he was introduced to 
Flamel. 

The ex- notary had been posted beforehand 
and carefully coached; he was irreproachable in 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


49 


manaer toward “Monsieur le Marquis,’' doing 
the honors of the house to the extent that one 
who has long been a friend of the mistress may 
assume to take that position. The two men left 
together and walked up the Avenue du Bois in 
company; when they came to the Arc de Tri- 
omphe the eider knew the younger just as well 
as he knew his own pocket. 

On the other hand he had closely watched 
Bose’s every look and motion, and the old fel- 
low was skilled in interpreting them. AVhen 
they were tete-a-tete next day, Flamel said to 
his fair friend: 

“Well, can you tell me what you mean to do 
with that marquis of yours?” 

Nothing gives assurance to a woman — and the 
case may be the same with a man — like having 
a clean conscience and an assured income of 
forty thousand francs. The lady got on her 
high-horse with Flamel; commencing with tart 
insinuations they came to disagreeable personal- 
ities and then to loud words — and the loudest, it 
grieves me to confess, were not those that fell 
from the lips of the old notary. 

“ Let us understand each other, ” said Rose, in 
conclusion. “I mean to go wherever I choose 
and receive every one that I see fit to. I have 
not the advantages of married life and I don’t 
propose to be hampered by its restraints. What 


50 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


idea have you got in your head? that I want to 
make that boy my lover? Do we either of us 
look like people addicted to such nonsense? And 
if we had any such notion would I be likely to 
choose the day when you are dining here to in- 
vite him? I give you plain warning that I shall 
invite him again, and you along with him. And 
you will come — and you will make yourself 
agreeable to him, just as you did last evening — 
and you will stop annoying me with your stu- 
pidities. And if you find my conditions too 
hard, my dear sir, there is nothing that compels 
you to come here.” 

This feminine argument, stronger than all the 
rest beside, seldom fails to be convincing, es- 
pecially when addressed to a man of sixty. 
Flamel hauled down his flag and promised to 
dine in Vitrac’s company as often as it should 
be required of him, only provided he might 
have an occasional dinner there alone. There 
were some of her words, however, that went in 
at one of his ears that failed to go out at the 
other. 

Many people will tell you that “ old Flamel” 
had been the shrewdest notary in Paris, even 
when it was other folks’ interests that he had in 
hand. It may be imagined what use he made of 
his sagacity and penetration when he saw black 
clouds lowering over one of the sunny aspects of 


PASTE, ^ OR DIAMONDS? 51 

his existence. In a month’s time he had come 
to know Vitrac as well as he knew Rose, and 
even better, for the game that was played in this 
quarter was a “show-down.” 

“There,” he said to himself, “is a young man 
chock full of noble instincts, and a salutary in- 
fluence is all that is wanting to make him as 
good a Yitrac as the best of them. It is a pity 
that he has had to grow up in solitude; he has 
had all the style taken out of him by the strug- 
gle for life, or rather by the struggle for daily 
bread, which uses a man up quicker yet. He is 
weak, like young birds that have been tumbled 
from a nest, even wflien that nest is an eagle’s. 
As for the other one, I can see what she is after; 
she means to be Marquise de Vitrac. Poor boy! 
how could he have put his foot in the trap that 
she set for him with her disinterested airs? Even 
I myself, when he is there, detect myself behav- 
ing like a father to that rascal of a Rose !” 

Flamel might have tried to release Vitrac 
from Mme. Lepiez’s clutches out of pure philan- 
thropy, but he was actuated by a more powerful 
motive. Cicero was never more eloquent than 
that day when he delivered his oration Pro Do- 
mo Sud. While defending the honor of the 
Vitracs, Flamel was pleading the cause of his 
own house, or at least one of his houses: the 
little one. 


52 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

The hardest part of it was to preserve the 
honor without destroying the house, or at any 
rate having its door closed against him. At the 
rising of the very first cloud in her matrimonial 
firmament. Rose would not be long in guessing 
the quarter from which the storm-wind blew, 
and then, good-by, M. Flamel ! 

In the meantime new meshes were added daily 
to the web of this astute spider, and, worst of 
all, the luckless notary, whether he would or not, 
had to play his part in the comedy. From the 
first moment of their acquaintance Vitrac had 
formed a correct opinion of him, which was that 
he was an honest man whose friendship would 
be an advantage to any one who succeeded in 
obtaining it. The Lord knows whether Rose 
made use of it or not ! At every moment of the 
day she was invoking him to vouch for her : 

“You who know the story of my life — You 
who know what it cost me to remain what I am 
— You can say whether or not I am a selfish 
woman — “ 

The poor man dared not contradict her, but 
he tore his hair, metaphorically speaking, ability 
being wanting to do anything better. It seemed 
to him that he was deserving of the galleys, as 
if in his days of active business he had sold a 
house and failed to say anything about the mort- 
gage on it. He felt like shouting to Vitrac: 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


53 


‘‘You fool! what are you doing here? Eat 
your twenty-nine sous dinners, drink your thin 
wine, blow on your fingers to keep them warm 
up in your frosty garret. What good does all 
this luxury do you? Cherish your poverty, re- 
spect the name that they are trying to filch from 
you — and my habits that I do not wish to be 
disturbed in!” 

At other times his anger would get the better 
of him. 

“The fellow ought to have some relations, 
even if nothing more than a distant cousin, to 
open his eyes for him ! He says that he has not, 
but it can’t be possible. How if he only had my 
age and the least little strip of cow-pasture in 
Hormandy, instead of being twenty-five and a 
marquis, you would see the nephews and nieces 
swarming about him like flies around a molasses- 
cask. How can I go to work to find the hiding- 
place of these relatives?” 

One day, when Rose was not within ear- 
shot, as a matter of course, old Flamel tried 
to put a flea in the ear of this ill-fated cast- 
away. 

“Monsieur le Marquis,” he said, “do you 
know what is the finest spectacle that the nobil- 
ity can afford to the eyes of the present genera- 
tion? It is that of poverty endured with cour- 
age. For that reason- 1 have a sincere admira- 


54 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

tion for you. It is plain that you are proud of 
yours.” 

“I don’t see that it is plain at all,” replied 
Rene, who was not to be entrapped by this flat- 
tering exordium. “Between you and me I am 
no more proud of being poor than you seem to 
be ashamed of being rich. Besides, I don’t see 
why — ” 

“Oh! but look at the difference. Without his 
money old Flamel is simply a pauper; that is all 
there is about it. Barring the poor-house, there 
is not a door open to him, while a marquis of 
ancient lineage, earning his bread and butter 
like a man, is welcomed by the very best 
families.” 

“Faith! I have not found it so,” said the 
young man. “Unless I am very much mistaken 
marquises with marriageable daughters avoid a 
marquis of your description as the devil runs 
from holy water.” 

“Excuse my freedom of speech, sir,” Flamel 
replied, “but you are doubly mistaken. In the 
first place you judge the world by books, and 
that is not a safe way to read it. In the next 
place your books are out of date, or else they 
were written for ignoramuses. I suppose that 
you will admit that I ought to know a thing or 
two about the matter, having drawn hundreds 
of marriage contracts for the folks of the Fau- 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


65 


bourg Sai at- Germain. Well, believe me, we 
are not living now in the times of Balzac, when 
young ladies of patrician family either got them- 
selvres into terrible scrapes or else died for the 
love of some ruined gentleman. The young 
ladies of the present day are much more level- 
headed, and their mothers are quite aware of 
the fact. Sometimes, not al ways, they favor an 
impecunious young man with a quadrille, but as 
for their hand, that is another matter. If the 
heart ha^s anything to do with the transaction, 
that is a part of the business that is transacted 
beyond the doors of our offices, but I have every 
reason to believe that such an accident is of rare 
occurrence.” 

“There, you see!” Vitrac rejoined. “You 
verify my assertion without meaning to do so. 
After that I shall take refuge among the bour- 
geoises.” 

Flamel did not see that his interlocutor was 
joking. Believing that he had, in fact, been 
arguing on the wrong side of the question, he 
raised his arms heavenward and exclaimed : 

“Monsieur le Marquis! Can it be you that 
I hear utter such words? What! you would de- 
scend to a mesalliance?” 

“I would not hesitate a moment,” Vitrac an- 
swered, and this time he felt sure that he was 
speaking the truth. 


56 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

‘‘And you would give up yoar freedom, at 
your age?” 

“What is my freedom to me, any way?” 

“Mon Dieu!” said Flamel, taking the back 
track, like a consummate strategist, “there is no 
doubt that a girl of humble birth, but young, 
extremely pretty and well-bred, of respectable 
family and with sufficient fortune — Under cir- 
cumstances like these a mesalliance carries no 
disgrace with it, but under these circumstances 
alone.” 

“It is a real pleasure to converse with you,” 
replied Vitrac. “Well, can you direct me to an 
angel who answers to your description?” 

The old notary screwed up his features in an 
odd grimace, and quickly answered; 

“Of course not; but if that is the way you 
feel about it, why don’t you start systematically 
and hunt for an heiress?” 

“Ah! there it is. I abominate hunting. One 
tires himself out and gets his clothes all muddy, 
and such a poor shot as I am would be sure to 
come in with an empty bag.” 

Poor Flamel was heartbroken. “He is ripe 
for the sickle,” he said to himself; “all that 
Kose has to do is to stoop and gather him in. In 
three weeks, unless Providence interferes in its 
goodness, it will be all up with this blind man.” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


67 


VI. 

His fears were increased by threatening symp- 
toms. Easter was at hand, and Madame Lepiez 
had undertaken to convert Vitrac, who, it may 
be mentioned parenthetically, was not a very 
abandoned sinner. To enable her to subject him 
to the necessary catechisings, she invited him to 
dinner two or three times a week and regaled 
him on fish and salads. He could never go 
there without rubbing up against some fashion- 
able lady or mendicant sister begging for alms 
as they made their way out with a thousand 
benedictions. On one occasion he had for his 
neighbor at table the Abbe X — , the director of 
a poverty-stricken orphan asylum, who would 
have dined with the devil himself if he were only 
allowed to carry away a loaf of bread for his 
poor folks. 

Flamel felt so sure that the end was at hand 
that he was scarcely surprised one day when 
Rose carefully closed all the doors and addressed 
him as follows: 

“My dear friend, you know what I am. I 
am a passionate adorer of order, and I can’t bear 
anything that is at all out of the way. My 


58 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


wealth, as I look at it, should serve some other 
purpose than to assure me the respect of my 
servants ; I wish to have the respect of society. 
For that, what is required? A husband. Will 
you marry me?” 

The old notary was hardly prepared for this 
last sentence of her paragraph. He gave a great 
bound upon his seat, and no one can tell the 
wrathful answer that was on the point of falling 
from his lips; but as he looked around he met, 
riveted upon his own, two black eyes which did 
not seem just then particularly tender. It was 
not the first time that he had wilted beneath 
that look. With a smile that was very like a 
grimace, he made answer: 

“My dear friend, those are words that I never 
expected to hear from your lips, and. I shall 
treasure them in my heart with gratitude until 
the last day of my life. I thank you ! upon my 
knees, I thank you ! ’ ’ 

He did not get down on his knees, however, 
but kissed the finger-tips of her who thus loyally 
offered herself to him. 

“Now,” he continued, “let us talk the matter 
over like rational beings. It is true that custom 
with us has given authority to this maxim — No 
husband, no consideration; but, my dear child, 
you have had a husband. I have had his proof 
of death in my hands ten times, and if he is 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


59 


dead it is neither your fault nor mine. You are 
a widow, and Paul says to Timothy: ^ Honor 
the widows. ’ A pious ecclesiastic told you that 
only yesterday, in my presence. Besides, I tell 
you, upon my word of honor, that I have had 
among my clients, in days gone by, widows of 
your age and almost as handsome as you whom 
the Archbishop of Paris used to visit.” 

Rose Lepiez looked at the speaker to see if he 
was not making game of her; but it was no 
laughing matter for him. He went on, more 
seriously than ever: 

‘‘So much for your side of the case; now a 
word or two about myself. I have a daughter 
going on twenty. You do not know her; I do. 
She has a mind of her own — the mind of the late 
Madame Plamel; that tells the whole story. I 
am just as sure as that I see you sitting there 
that you would be the best of mothers-in-law, 
but I should hesitate to assert that she would 
make an equally desirable daughter-in-law. 
Observe that my daughter is by no means a 
homely girl, and will have a good dowry. I 
have had several offers for her, but just as soon 
as I mention a gentleman’s name to her she 
slams the door in his face. She will have to 
give up her uncivilized ways some of these days, 
and then I shall be my own master. Do you 


60 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


“It is quite plain,” said Rose. “You will 
marry me, and in addition to the disagreeable 
daughter I shall be the happy possessor of a son- 
in-law who will send me about my business. 
Much obliged. I prefer a family of my own 
raising. Listen, Flamel, do you value my 
friendship?” 

“ That is a question that — ” 

“ Then you will have to convince me of it by 
conquering every impulse of selfishness. Be- 
tween ourselves, I was afraid that you would 
make me the answer that you did, and I have 
another husband in mind in place of the one that 
I would have preferred and find that I cannot 
have. What have you to say of our friend 
Vitrac?” 

Flamel arose and walked twice up and down 
Rose’s salon with a foreboding that the engage- 
ment that he was about to take part in was not 
going to be child’s play. With a melodramatic 
gesture he replied : 

“ I have to say that you have already made me 
feel like killing that young man a hundred times 
over.” 

Rose was not alarmed by the terrors of this 
speech. She had not acquired much renown in 
her former days by her rendition of classic roles 
and was not above quoting Moliere. 

“ I wouldn’t let my anger get the better of me 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 6i 

if I were you,” she said. “You remind me of 
Angelique’s father striding about the room in 
obedience to Purgon’s prescription. Don’t kill 
anybody, and let us remain good friends ; believe 
me, that is the best thing you can do. To efiiect 
it you will have to render me a service. You 
understand that I cannot do for another what I 
have just done for you: oiBEer my hand with the 
chance of having it refused.” 

The ex-notary walked up to Rose with arms 
crossed upon his chest and eyes flashing Are. 

“ Ah ! ah !” he said, in a transport of rage. 
“You are reckoning upon me to serve as your 
go-between! You suppose me capable of this 
baseness, of this — ” 

He stopped. Mme. Lepiez’s hand was reach- 
ing for the bell-handle. 

“Wait!” he cried, “wait, I beg you!” 

He was too late. A servant appeared. 

“Call a cab for monsieur,” ordered Rose, in 
a very gentle voice, “and see that it is well 
warmed. It is a cold day and M. Flamel is 
not feeling very well.” 

The man disappeared, leaving the old notary 
in a state bordering on prostration. 

“So,” groaned the wretched man, “you are 
.driving me from this house, where — where — ” 

“From this house,” said Rose, prudently fin- 
ishing his sentence for him, “where you have 


62 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


been received as a friend that was believed capa- 
ble of a sacrifice. I find that I was mistaken, 
and the house is no longer open to you.” 

“But to think that I shall never see you 
again !” cried Flamel, in an explosion of grief. 

Who said that you are never to see me again? 
The idea must have originated in your own head 
You know very well that a faithful and respecta 
ble woman, such as it is my intention to be, 
could not give you her hand without a blush. 
You admit that you are unworthy of my confid- 
ing hospitality. Come, let us part without an- 
ger. Perhaps I am causing you sorrow, but you 
have deceived me cruelly and have broken my 
heart. We are quits.” 

He remained for a moment with his face hid- 
den in his hands. When he raised his head his 
little gray eyes were glittering with their old- 
time cunning, which he repressed immediately. 

“ My strength is exhausted,” he said. “ I must 
ask you to excuse me and let me go; I feel that 
I must have time for meditation, that I must put 
the question to myself, which will make me most 
unhappy, never to see you again or to see you 
another’s wife. Grant me a delay of three 
days.” 

“Be it so,” she said, with feigned emotion. 
“ Whatever the future has in store for me, it will 
be to you that I shall owe the picture of an in- 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


63 


grate’s face arising to trouble my happiest mo- 
ments.” 

And these two actors parted with a shake of 
the hands, without laughing in each other’s 
face. 

Three days after that Flamel made his appear- 
ance in the salon again, melancholy, but resigned. 
He said to his friend : 

“ I am ready. What am I to do?” 

‘‘It is very simple,” she replied. “Suppose 
that I am your daughter, and that you have 
taken a fancy that you would like to have the 
Marquis de Vitrac for a son-in-law. There is 
the programme. As to its execution, my dear 
master, that is a thing that I don’t bother my 
head about; I leave it entirely to you, who must 
have arranged many much more difficult matches 
in your time.” 

Flamel was about to answer: “Not many,” 
but he choked down the imprudent words and 
set about preparing to carry out his orders. He 
could not help feeling interested, either, in this 
new experience of human nature that he was 
about to undertake. 

The following day, about four o’clock, he en- 
tered Vitrac’s office and said to him : 

“Will it be agreeable to you to go and take 
a little walk with me? I have something that 
I would like to say to you.” 


64 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Ten minutes later they were alone together 
on the. terrace that overlooks the water, and 
Flamel proceeded to take the bull by the horns. 

“Monsieur le Marquis,” he said, “do you re- 
member our conversation on the subject of mes- 
alliances?” 

“Not only do I remember it,” said the young 
man, “ but I have also given the question some 
reflection, for you sprang it on me unawares.” 

“ I conjecture that your reflections have made 
you less liberal in your ideas.” 

“Faith! no. Quite the contrary; I dislike 
that word mesalliance. I would like to know” 
who can say that I am mismatched if I am 
mated satisfactorily to myself : with due regard 
to material interests, possibly, but in accordance 
also with the dictates of my heart and my con- 
science?” 

“ Monsieur le Marquis ! Monsieur le Marquis ! 
If the world to which you belong heard those 
words ! ” 

“ Oh, well, as far as that goes, that considera- 
tion don’t trouble me in the least. It is a pretty 
long distance away from me, that ‘ world to 
which I belong ! ’ that god that is all-powerful 
and invisible, like the true God. Only the 
other, the true God, who will punish me with 
hell-flre if I sin, promises me His favor after 
this life if I serve Him. The world, however. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


65 


speaks otherwise. It says : ‘ Get yourself out 
of your scrape if you can, my boy, but don’t 
count on us to help you. You have no money ; 
try to live and die so that your name shall not 
come to our ears ; that is the best thing that you 
can do. Don’t marry. If you should succeed 
in enticing away from the fold one of our 
lambs richer than yourself we would do our best 
to prevent the consequences of her folly; but 
such an accident is not likely to happen. Fla- 
mel has told you so ! If your choice should fall 
on a poor girl she could not come to our houses 
after three o’clock of the afternoon so long as 
dresses and babies are as costly as they are now. 
If you should marry beneath your rank perhaps 
we might visit you; it would depend on the 
magnitude of your offense, that is to say, of the 
dowry. But you would be accursed — for eigh- 
teen months, or two years, if not longer. ’ That 
is what the ‘world to which I belong’ says to 
me. And now, M. Flamel, what have you to 
propose to me?” 

“You seem to look upon the matter as all a 
joke,” answered the ex-notary. “Well! you 
will see whether or not I am joking. I am 
commissioned to sound you on the subject of 
marriage.” 

Vitrac looked at the embassador and said, 
with an affectation of carelessness: 


66 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


“Now that I see your face I refrain from 
asking whether you are in earnest; an under- 
taker would be cheerful in comparison with you. 
We will therefore proceed with the examination. 
And, in the first place, what is the lady’s social 
condition?” 

“ Monsieur le Marquis, there is no examination 
required. You know the person; I had the 
honor of dining with you at her house no longer 
ago than Thursday last.” 

Flamel was watching his interlocutor closely 
as he communicated this intelligence to him. 
He thought that he saw him start, but not as 
violently as he would have desired. Yitrac 
walked up and down the terrace for a moment 
without opening his mouth, then replied: 

“Up to the present time the number of those 
who have extended a helping hand to me amounts 
to four, and not one more. The first was a holy 
man, who took me in and taught me the cate- 
chism. The second was the director of a small 
college, who did his best to make me forget my 
Pater while teaching me all sorts of useful 
things. The third was a poor soldier of fortune, 
who kept me from dying of the fever in Ger- 
many and saved me from starvation in France. 
My fourth benefactor, who is a benefactress, has 
made my daily bread less hard to my teeth, and 
opened to me the door of the only hospitable 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


67 


house that I have ever known . Now, perhaps 
through a romantic sentiment of compassion, 
this devoted and kind-hearted woman makes 
advances to me. Can I listen without emotion 
to her request? This request, moreover, is ad- 
dressed to me through the lips of an honest man, 
and the fact of his intervention has already 
quieted certain scruples of mine. Still, the busi- 
ness is one that requires serious consideration. 
It is not the question of marrying a rich woman 
of low birth; the objection of her birth is a tri- 
fling one compared with the objection of her 
having been on the stage. You will understand 
me. Monsieur Flamel, and will not be surprised 
that I feel that I must have time to reflect upon 
the matter. It is all so entirely unexpected !” 

“I understand you fully, Monsieur le Marquis. 
Only tell me, please, what answer I am to make. 
I will give it, word for word, as it is my part 
to do.” 

“Report to her what I said, without omitting 
a word. Tell her that I will give her an answer 
day after to-morrow. Only add — but no, don’t 
add anything. I will tell you what I was about 
to say so that you may understand the trouble 
that I am in. From the day when I saw for the 
first time the friend who is to you as a daugh- 
ter, I— I admired her wildly, and if my feeling 
then had not been almost immediately succeeded 


68 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


by one of respect, esteem and gratitude— Ah ! 
great Heavens! will she forgive me for hesi- 
tating one moment before such goodness and 
generosity?” 

“Come, come! Monsieur le Marquis, you are 
letting your youthfulness run away with you. 
l^ever fear; your reflections will be forgiven 
you; I will see to it. As to what remains, may 
the Lord help you! for I can’t, seeing my friend- 
ship for one of the parties — and I might even 
say for you both.” 

He went away, affecting to laugh with the 
boisterous, cheerful laugh of the good old uncle 
of the stage, but he was hardly out of sight 
when his seriousness returned to him. 

“That was all that was wanting!” ho said to 
himself. “That si 7- boots of a Rose baited all 
her hooks for him and captured him through his 
better nature. And I, what am I to do if my 
machinations fail me? Leave this poor fellow 
in the scrape he has got himself into? Hover! 
The devil take all ruined marquises and schem- 
ing hussies, I say!” 

Flamel had no idea that at that very moment 
his “machinations” were working smoothly, 
and about to meet with a success a hundred 
times greater than he had ever hoped for. 


PASTE, Or diamonds ? 


69 


VII. 

While the old notary and Vitrac were con- 
versing on the terrace next to the lake in the 
garden of the Taileries, a young girl was read- 
ing the Gazette de France to a woman who was 
extremely old and decrepit and almost blind. 
The reader was very pretty and exquisitely 
dressed, the old lady seemed very poor, and the 
place where these events were occurring was a 
salon that was more than humble, at the fifth 
story of a house in the Chaussee d’Autin. 

When the reading of the somniferous journal 
was concluded the young lady drew from her 
pocket another that was less austere, and said, 
with a rather timid respectfulness of which the 
effect was most charming: 

“Madame, I know that the marriages in so- 
ciety interest you. Here is one announced in 
the Figaro, and your name is even mentioned 
in the article.” 

The old lady, who was sitting straight in her 
chair as if it were a throne, not leaning back in 
it at all, pursed up her lips as she replied : 

“I would like to know what right those news- 
paper-men have to bring the dead to life again ! 


70 


PASTE, OK DIAMONDS ? 


Let us see who it is that is getting married. 
Read, dear heart — although that paper has put 
up a queer saint for its sign. A fine pass your 
Monsieur Figaro has brought us all to, he and 
his ideas!” 

The girl offered no contradiction, but read the 
following passage in a fresh and delicately mod- 
ulated voice. Her accent, however, a little too 
noticeably Parisian, formed a marked contrast 
with the classical and slightly pedantic inflec- 
tions of her old friend. 

“ ‘ Here is a bit of news that we give without 
committing ourselves to its authenticity. It is 
said that the Marquis de V — , the only surviv- 
ing scion of a family that is to-day shorn of its 
pristine glories, at present employed in a hum- 
ble capacity in one of the' departments, is about 
to lead to the altar one of our old theatrical 
favorites, beautiful still and very wealthy. The. 
ruins of the feudal castle of the De Y.’s may 
still be seen crowning an eminence near the small 
station of Yitrac, in Auvergne. The De Y. 
family is connected by marriage with the Pon- 
tussons, the Yerniolles, the Rimonts, the Ren- 
cluses — ’ ” 

The, old lady did not allow her reader to 
finish. 

“Holy Yirgin!” she exclaimed. “Here is 
news! Read that part over again, my child, 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS,? 


71 


where it speaks of the castle and the ruins. 
Vitrac! — can it be possible!” 

When she had heard it read a second time — 

“So there is a Vitrac still alive!” she said, 
greatly agitated. “I thought that the last one 
had died in battle. It is he, no doubt, who is 
come to life again to cover us with glory ! My 
usual luck! It restores to me a nephew, and I 
find that he is a renegade.” 

She stopped suddenly and turned her thunders 
upon her young companion, who was looking at 
her in amazement, her mouth wide open and her 
arms hanging at her side. 

“Well, mademoiselle! You stare at me as if 
I was a wax image. Is there anything so very 
astonishing in my having a nephew? I suppose 
you think that I was picked up under a doorway 
with a medal tied by a string about my neck. 
Well, you make a mistake; I had a family, and 
so had my deceased husband. It is owing to 
him, indeed, that I have the honor of being re- 
lated to this young good-for-nothing, for the 
Rimonts and the Vitracs intermarried five times; 
the first time under Charles VIII., the second 
under — But I am forgetting to whom I am 
talking. What do you care that this wretched 
boy brings disgrace upon his aunt?” 

“Oh, madame!” said the young lady, raising 
her tearful eyes toward Madame de Rimont, 


72 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

“you have known this long time that your sor- 
rows are mine/’ 

“That is right. There, now, she is going to 
cry. Dear heart, we will say no more about it. 
Besides, he is only a very distant connection, 
and I am more dead and buried than Alexander 
the Great. It is only another cross added to the 
burden of my life — and what is one more or 
less?” 

“But, madame, can you not do something to 
prevent monsieur your nephew from contracting 
a marriage that is displeasing to you?” 

“Just listen to the child! One would think 
that I had the young blackguard under my 
thumb and could make him mind by merely 
shaking my finger at him! A gentleman who 
is in the service of the government, a gentleman 
who — Come, come, my dear, you will make 
me say something that would not be suitable for 
your ears to hear. After all, let him go hang 
himself, if he wants to!” 

“Perhaps, if you were to speak to him — It 
seems that when you command anything it is 
impossible to say no.” 

“I should have to see him before I could speak 
to him.” 

“Write and tell him to come here.” 

“And how about my vow never to see any 
one again?” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


73 


“Oh! madame. A nephew!” 

In less than fifteen minutes Madame de Ri- 
mont, unable to withstand, so much eloquence, 
had dictated a note “to her young friend. Then 
the difficulty arose how to address it. 

“ ‘Employed in one of the departments,’ ” said 
the pretty amanuensis, referring to the news- 
paper. “ Which department ? There are a 
dozen, at least. How to find the right one?” 

This time Madame de Rimont shook her head 
with an air of confidence, and with a voice that 
still retained great strength called : 

“Petrouille!” 

A servant, who was apparently a contemporary 
of her mistress, responded to the summons, lier 
wooden shoes clicking on the hard floor. 

“Who is in waiting to-day?” 

Petrouille raised her nose in the air and col- 
lected her wits, and after due reflection made 
answer : 

“My nephew, Boniface Pigagniol, Mine, la 
Comtesse.” 

“ Very well. He is an intelligent young man ; 
he would know where to look for a needle in a 
haystack. Go and bring him here.” 

The servant was about to obey when a young 
voice was heard that gently said : 

“ I am going down to my father’s apartment, 


74 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

madame ; if you wish I will take your orders for 
Boniface.” 

“ Certainly, darling, I wish it, and I thank 
you for remembering Petrofiille’s old legs. But 
is there anything good or kind that you fail to 
think of ? ” 


VIII. 


A MAN whose mind is occupied by a question 
of importance is somewhat like the somnambu- 
listic schoolboy who awoke in the morning and 
found his translation completed. When Vitrac 
awoke with his thoughts in a muddle after his 
conversation with Flamel his translation had 
made great progress; still it differed from the 
one of the tale in this, that there were errors 
in it. 

The happy mortal asked himself as he rubbed 
his eyes : 

“What can have happened to make me so 
light-hearted?” 

He was soon sufficiently wideawake to com- 
prehend the full extent of his good fortune, and 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


75 


even more fortunate men than he might have 
concluded that he was not to be pitied. Fully 
one half of the human race would sell their souls 
to Old Nick if thereby they might gratify their 
senses, their self-love, or their interests ; and here 
Yitrac had realized all three of these desiderata, 
and there was not even the smell of sulphur on 
the parchment that was handed him for his sig- 
nature. A charming woman laid her heart and 
fortune at his feet and begged him to do her the 
honor of stooping down to pick them up. There 
was an end to the battle with poverty that had 
been such a tough one for him to fight ; his trou- 
bles were over, his translation was made and the 
prize would soon be his; and what a prize! 

Life henceforth was to bo for him a romance, 
a romance after the style of Deshoulieres, in 
which the sheep would be fat, the grass thick 
and spangled with flowers, and wolves unknown. 
Loved as he was, without having the trouble of 
falling in love, ought he to complain if his fair 
shepherdess had the advantage of him in the 
number of her years, even as in the number of 
her flocks? So charming was she, so dazzling 
the gold of her tresses ! And by the utterance of 
a single word all these treasures might be his ! 

There were times, it is true, when the three 
letters of this little word seemed to him as big 
as mountains. He confidingly said to himself, 


76 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS? 


without stopping to consider if the other party 
in interest would agree to the bargain : 

“ How I wish that I could have her with half 
her money and without that confounded thea- 
ter!” 

A moment afterward he was consoling himself 
with the thought that kings and princes, quite 
as good as the Vitrac’s, had taken wives from 
off the boards. Besides, it was so long ago ; who 
would ever remember now that Rose had once 
capered about those boards on her tiny feet under 
another name? 

He was divided, not evenly, it must be con- 
fessed, between these conflicting considerations, 
when he took his seat at his desk in his office, a 
vast room flooded with sunlight, the windows of 
which gave him a pleasant outlook upon fresh 
green foliage. Two or three comrades, young 
men of the better class, welcomed him with easy 
good-humor devoid of vulgarity. How far away 
in the distance seemed that hole-in-the-wall of 
the Bourse, with its capital and low ceiling and 
Larceveau’s puns ! Like Tityrus when his woes 
were ended Yitrac felt like exclaiming : I owe 
these favors to a goddess.” And the time for 
the most precious favors had not come yet ! 

He had been at work for some time, rather 
more indolently than usual, if the truth must be 
told, when a commissionaire entered the room, 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


77 


cap in hand. It was Petrouille’s nephew, the 
young man that the comtesse had spoken of. 
The youth did not appear to be over fifty-five or 
so. With an accent that betrayed the secret of 
his birthplace, stout Pigagniol said inquiringly : 

“Mouchieur le Marquis de Vitrac?” 

The other clerks looked at one another. A 
marquis ! What reason had this sly dog for con- 
cealing his title? The head clerk, who belonged 
to the collateral line of a comte of the Empire, 
and wore crowns embroidered all over his cloth- 
ing, even to his socks, pointed peevishly to the 
object of the inquiry. The marquis took the 
note and scrutinized the writing, expecting to 
recognize Rose’s hand, or rather her chamber- 
maid’s; but the characters that met his gaze 
were elegantly formed, fine and pointed, alto- 
gether strange to him. At the same time he 
was struck by the oddity of the superscription — 

Monsieur le Marquis de Vitrac, 

Clerk in one of the Departments, 

He asked the bearer: “How did you succeed 
in finding me with such scant details?” 

The man explained that he had been on the go 
for three hours and had ransacked the depart- 
ments of the Interior, War, Public Works and 
the Havy, from cellar to garret. He appeared 


78 


PASTE, OR MAMONDS ? 


pleased with himself that he had accomplished 
his mission so speedily. 

“For you see,” said he, “that I had six more 
shops to visit if I had not found Mouchieur le 
Marquis at the Finanches.^^ 

Vitrac, in his bewilderment, tore open the 
envelope and made himself acquainted with its 
contents, which made him a little nervous. 

“Was this letter given you by a lady?” he in- 
quired of the Auvergnat in a low voice. 

“Yes,” replied Pigagniol,- in a voice of thun- 
der, “and a nice, pretty lady she was, for cer- 
tain. ‘Boniface,’ she told me, ‘you will find 
that gentleman if it takes you a week to do it. 
There is a hundred sous for you, and that is not 
all; you will get something more when you 
bring me an answer.’ Mouchieur le Marquis 
does not owe me anything.” 

The young man reflected for a few seconds. 
“I have read somewhere or other,” he thought, 
“that one romance always brings another in its 
train. How true that is! Ought I to- go and 
see this comtesse ? Plainly, yes. But what 
will happen if my pretty friend learns of my 
escapade before matters are settled with her? 
Bah! why should she know anything about it? 
I will tell Tier the story later on, and antedate 
it if necessary. If she is jealous, so much the 
better !” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


79 


His mustache curled upward in a faint smile. 
Every one in the office, not excepting the head 
clerk, would have given a month’s pay to be in 
his shoes when he gave his answer to the Au- 
vergnat in an off-hand way that indicated the 
progress he was making in the manners of polite 
society. 

“Say that I will be there about half-past 
five.” 

While the floor was still trembling beneath 
the 'Weight of Pigagniol’s massive shoes, the 
man whom Rose was expecting would be her 
husband read over the two or three lines that 
he had just received — 

“The Comtesse de Rimont would like to have 
a few moments’ conversation with Monsieur de 
Yitrac upon a subject of importance.” 


80 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


IX. 

What with his elaborately curled hair, the 
studied tie of his cravat, and the flower in his 
buttonhole, Vitrac looked as little as possible 
like a marquis when he entered the house in the 
Chaussee d’Autin of which he had been given 
the address. The concierge’s answer to his ques- 
tion was expressive of respect for his tenant — 

“Madame la Comtesse de Rimont lives on the 
fifth floor, the door facing the stairs.” 

The visitor started with amazement, and when 
he had made the porter repeat the co-efficient 
that designated the floor started up the stairs 
with the air of one who had not believed that 
heaven was so far above the earth. 

The door was opened by a little thick-set 
woman, who nevertheless displayed great activ- 
ity, whose round face looked out from the center 
of her great ruffled cap like the dial of a clock 
set in some fantastic enframement. Petrouille, 
for she it was, had spent her whole life in un- 
successful conflict with her congenital joviality, 
which, during the last forty-flve years, had 
brought down upon her head many a gentle, but 
earnest, reproof from her mistress. With a 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


81 


broad grin upon her face, marking her intense 
satisfaction, she asked: 

“Monsieur le Marquis de Yitrac?” and added, 
upon an affirmative gesture from that exalted 
personage: “Monsieur le Marquis is expected.” 

Then Petrouille conducted the young man 
from the ante-chamber, that was dimly illumi- 
nated by the lamp that she had in her hand, to a 
drawing-room that must be described in order 
that the reader may have some faint understand- 
ing of Yitrac ’s astonishment when he set his 
foot in it. 

The first thing that attracted his attention was 
the portrait of a child seated at a table covered 
with books. The frame struck his eyes ; first, be- 
cause its huge dimensions were entirely out of 
harmony with the size of the picture, and next 
because it was surmounted by a kingly crown. 
On each side of it hung a contrivance fashioned 
to represent two miniature hunting-horns, and 
in the bell-shaped mouths of these wax candles 
were burning. Beneath the likeness an arm- 
chair, turned so as to face the wall, displayed its 
back of canvas with a sulky air which, at the 
first glance, seemed to augur ill for the hospital- 
ity of the apartment. 

On each side of the armchair an inclosed 
book-case in imitation oak, the grain of the wood 
being preternaturally apparent, rose elbow-high, 


82 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


baMing curiosity as to its contents by curtains 
that had once been green stretched behind its 
doors of glass. One of these cases bore a terres- 
trial globe as its principal ornament, while on 
the other was a telescope mounted in brass. 

The wooden mantelpiece, painted black, was 
adorned by an equestrian statue of Saint Louis, 
and the artist, from motives either of modesty 
or prudence, had avoided the main difficulties of 
his subject with considerable ingenuity, for the 
whole body of the animal and his legs down to 
his hoofs were lost in a long drapery emblazoned 
with fleurs-de-lis that swept the ground — that of 
the desert of Palestine, no doubt — while a hel- 
met, the visor of which was movable, protected 
at pleasure either all or part of the royal coun- 
tenance, not only against Mussulman arrows but 
against the prying glances of Christians as well. 

A square piano, with plain uncarved legs, 
seemed to be shivering in its cover of yellowish 
reps, for it was plainly evident that the mistress 
of the house did not share the silkworm’s pre- 
dilection for warmth. This instrument, the 
keys of which had once been touched by august 
fingers, served as pedestal to a reel that wag 
still wound with woolen yarn that was no less 
sacred. As for the chairs, arranged along the 
walls in battle array, their angularity reminded 
the spectator of David’s pictures, in which the 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


83 


most pleasing emotions of life are embittered by 
the absence of comfort. No matter how little 
inclined to laziness a man might be, he would 
recoil with affright if he but looked at those 
sharp-cornered seats, conveying less idea to the 
eye of hardness than brass or marble, but in 
reality scarcely less inhospitable to the sense of 
touch. 

Upon one of these curule chairs was seated a 
woman of large frame, whose attitude and feat- 
ures seemed to manifest more majesty than 
good-nature. The Romans of old awaiting the 
coming of the Gauls in the vestibules of their 
abodes could not have felt less inclination to 
laugh than did the comtesse as she awaited the 
appearance of Vitrac in her salon; and Yitrac 
knew no more than did the Gauls who it was 
that was going to receive his visit. To tell the 
truth, the poor fellow at first wondered if he had 
not got into the apartment of a crazy woman, so 
much did the dress and appearance of the un- 
known seem to be those of another and fantastic 
world. 

Madame de Rimont’s hair, which she still 
wore a la giraffe, could not be beaten by any 
hair in the world for the beauty of its silvery 
whiteness and its silky softness. It was brought 
up on top of her head in two great rolls, which 
were accompanied on each temple by little curls. 


84 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


very artistically arranged, that stopped just in 
front of the ear. It resembled nothing so much 
as an enormous white moth fluttering its wings 
above a pyramid of fritters powdered with 
sugar. A complicated knot of ribbons of black 
gauze formed the crown of the structure, and 
nothing could be more strange than the contrast 
that was afforded by the incongruously youthful 
shape of this head-dress and frhe aspect of the 
face beneath that bore upon it the marks of near 
a century. 

The dress of gray bombazine — a thin material 
of which the very name has become extinct — 
was no less antiquated than the coiffure and 
the features. The enormous breadth of the 
sleeves, that narrowed down at the wrists, gave 
one the idea of a monstrous body composed of 
three busts united at the shoulders. The middle 
one, belted at the waist by a black ribbon, dis- 
played in its median portion two series of creases 
that met at their ends, like the meridians on 
prolate spheres. A poet of the good old days 
would have said that Time, that thief who is 
never arrested, had disdained to touch the 
shrines when he carried off the jewels. A boy’s 
collar, very wide and of smooth white linen, bor- 
dered with a simple hem, fell over her shoulders 
and concealed the hollowness of the neck that 
once had vied with other necks in whiteness in 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


85 


hours of revelry. Finally, the very plain, rather 
short skirt disclosed to view a pair of feet rest- 
ing squarely upon their small piece of carpet and 
encased in black, heelless buskins, fastened with 
narrow black ribbons that made a spiral upon 
the immaculately white stockings. 

For the first time in his life, as he subsequently 
acknowledged, Vitrac knew what it was to be 
afraid as he stood there beneath the unwavering 
gaze of that motionless phantom of the past. 
Not only did he hesitate to advance into the room, 
but, had it not been that Petrouille blocked his 
way, he would fairly have taken to his heels. 
Matters were not improved when he heard the 
phantom address him with the following objur- 
gation in a very loud, hoarse, almost masculine 
voice : 

“Well, nephew, is this your first appearance 
in a respectable drawing-room?” 

Vitrac, from motives of amazement and 
truthfulness, was about to answer: “Yes, 
aunt,” but he was restrained by a sense of self- 
respect and also by the thought that he was be- 
ing made, the butt of some huge joke. Not wish- 
ing to be considered a fool, he advanced toward 
the specter with outstretched hand ; his feelings 
must have been much the same as those of Don 
Juan when he had to face the Statue of the Com. 
mander. 


86 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


“ How do you do, aunt, ” said he, in a cheer- 
ful, off-hand way. ‘‘Delighted to make your 
acquaintance.” 

Mme. de Rimont did not accept the proffered 
hand, but pointed solemnly to the portrait with 
a gesture such as we frequently see represented 
on ancient Egyptian monuments. 

“First salute the king,” she gravely said. 
“You are in his house here.” 

At this Vitrac was more assured than ever 
that he was dealing with a crazy woman; but 
he put a bold face on the matter, and although 
he did not understand what it all meant, made 
his reverence before the chapel very respectfully, 
followed still by the unrelenting gaze of the two 
old women. 

As no one invited him to take a seat, and the 
armchair was within reach of his hand, he took 
it and turned it about and was on the point of 
subsiding into it when, at the very instant when 
the sacrilegious act was on the eve of its accom- 
plishment, he w^as arrested by two piercing 
shrieks. Mme. de Rimont had risen, trem- 
bling in all her frame. 

“ No one,” she said, with commanding majes- 
ty, “ no one except the king may sit upon the 
chair that has been occupied by Charles X.” 

Yitrac, deeply impressed in spite of himself by 


87 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

her earnestness of manner, pushed the- throne 
back to its prescriptive position and remained 
standing where he was, very much embarrassed 
and not daring to open his mouth or stir hand 
or foot. This reverential awe did not escape 
Mme. de Rimont’s observation; she seemed 
gratified by it. She reoccupied her own chair, 
and assigning to the young man another seat, 
less august than the last, dismissed Petrouille 
with another of her Pharaonic gestures, and 
then, after further contemplating the newcomer 
for a moment, spoke as follows : 

“ Nephew, you are decked out in an extremely 
strange fashion, probably in accordance with the 
latest style. Do what you may, however, you 
show that you belong to the Vitracs; you are a 
Vitrac to the very tips of your fingers. That 
is not a bad compliment.” 

The visitor returned thanks by a bow in two 
motions, which might be taken as an act of pro- 
pitiation to her insanity or a mark of respect for 
the family, according as one felt inclined to look 
at it. Still, he was not quite so certain that she 
was mad. 

'‘Nephew,” continued the comtesse, going di- 
rect to the pith of the matter that she had at 
heart, “ will you be so good as to tell me if the 
newspapers speak truly in attributing to you 
such fine marriage projects?” 


88 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Rene de Yitrac’s first opinions as to the mental 
state of the old lady began to disappear more 
and more. 

“ I very much doubt whether the newspapers 
have anything at all to say of me, either good or 
bad,” he said evasively. 

“You are in doubt!” said she. “Well! just 
look at that, and then tell me if you think you 
have reason to be proud.” 

She handed him the Figaro^ holding it be- 
tween her thumb and index finger at the place 
where the obnoxious article was. He took the 
paper, read it, rubbed his eyes, read it again, and 
handed it back to the comtesse, whom this time 
he did not hesitate to address as “aunt.’’ It 
was not Madame de Rimont now who was verg- 
ing most perilously upon insanity, but the fact 
was that there was enough there to make any 
one mad. Still, Yitrac was too much a man of 
his time not to feel at first a sensation of keen 
delight at seeing himself in type, even though 
his name was only given in initials. Besides, 
there was nothing condemnatory in the article, 
and his marriage was spoken of as a matter in 
no wise out of the common. His marriage ! So 
the thing was assuming shape and consistency; 
people were beginning to talk of it. “Nothing 
escapes these newspapers!” he said to himself 
with more of admiration than of anger. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


89 


As to whence the information emanated, that 
was a matter that his inconsequent mind did not 
endeavor to fathom. Did he not read daily in 
this same paper the most secret designs of em- 
perors and chancellors? And was it more diffi- 
cult to divine the thoughts of a humble clerk 
in the Treasury Department, who. Heaven be 
praised! had nothing to conceal? 

Madame de Rimont’s gray eyes remained 
fastened upon those of the young man. He felt 
himself constrained to reply to their mute ques- 
tioning. 

“Mon Dieu!” he carelessly remarked, “no 
final decision has been reached yet about this 
marriage, or to speak more correctly, it was first 
mentioned to me only yesterday. And it is that, 
if I understand aright, that has procured me the 
honor — ” 

“Let us not speak of honor,” said the com- 
tesse, extending her little wrinkled hand. “It 
is a thing that is becoming scarce, I see, even 
among Vitracs. I had thought that you were 
killed in the war, as it was right that the last of 
your house should be. It was cruel in God to 
undeceive me. ” 

“Oh! as to that, aunt, my regret is almost as 
great as your disappointment; but I assure you 
that it was not my fault that they caught me 
alive.” 


90 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

“Does a brave man suffer himself to be cap- 
tured?” 

“Sometimes, wheu he has his shoulder smashed 
aud iu his hand a broken sword fit for nothing 
but to open oysters.” 

The comtesse all at once seemed to become ob- 
livious of the reason why her nephew was there. 
Looking straight before her as if inspired, with 
eyes that saw nothing, she said : 

“That very thing happened to one of your 
family who fought in the battle of Poitiers. 
The English took him j)risoner and let him go 
on his pledge to pay a ransom of twenty thou- 
sand crowns Parisis.” 

“It was a lucky thing for me that the Ger- 
mans never thought of putting me to ransom. 
If they had asked me for so little as five louis I 
should not have been in a condition to say to 
them, Done!” 

“But that is no reason why you should con- 
tract a marriage — ” 

“Oh, yes, it is; the very best of reasons. 
When one has twenty thousand crowns in his 
trousers’ pocket, like the ancestor that you spoke 
of, he marries whom he pleases; when one has 
nothing he is less hard to suit. See here, my 
dear aunt, I am sure that you have the history 
of my family and yours at your finger-ends ; you 
would be able to find there precedents suited to 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


91 


every exigency except one, and that is the one 
in which I am now. The Vitracs had many 
excellent habits, and among them was that of 
being rich.” 

“If they had been dying of hunger they would 
have never married an actress. I suppose that 
you intend to turn actor, to make everything 
harmonious?” 

“Oh, well, aunt, the admiral, my uncle and 
yours, was neither hungry nor thirsty, so far 
as I know, when he turned Turk, and I don’t 
think that that was more glorious than turn 
ing actor.” 

The old woman’s wrinkled cheeks flamed as if 
the disgrace were but of yesterday ; but quickly 
recovering herself, and raising her head erect, 
she said: 

“You blaspheme! I regret that I summoned 
you here, but the idea was not mine. In forty- 
five years these walls have heard nothing like 
the words that you uttered just now. I pray 
that he whose picture there upon the v^all looks 
down on us may forgive them. We are to part, 
then, no doubt forever, but it shall not be until 
I have taken up the challenge that you have cast 
at my feet. No, monsieur, I am not ashamed 
to give you an instance that will show you how 
poverty can be endured among people of our 
station!” 


92 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Vitrac mechanically turned his eyes toward 
the clock as if with the faint hope that it might 
strike eleven at night. It cannot be denied that 
he had not as yet encountered the delights that 
had been raised before his youthful anticipa- 
tions by the message that he had received from 
a “young and pretty” lady. 

“Do not be alarmed,” the comtesse began; 
“I shall not detain you long. But, in the first 
place, did you ever hear speak of Colonel de 
Rimont, who lost his life in 1823 at the siege of 
Cadiz? He was my husband and the last of his 
race; after me there will be no living creature 
to bear that name.” 

“I was not born until thirty years after the 
Spanish war,” Vitrac replied; “and I must con- 
fess that — ” 

“Enough! I see that there is no great de- 
pendence to be placed upon your family recollec- 
tions. So, then, I was left a young and child- 
less widow, poorer, probably, than you are. It 
so happened, fortunately, that the king came 
to know of my troubles, and he had pity on 
them.” 

“Oh, well, aunt,” exclaimed the incorrigible 
Vitrac, “if there was a king — ” 

‘‘There is a king, the grandson of my bene- 
factor, and you are now in his house, as you 
will see presently. It was my lips that answered 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


93 


his first childish questions, these eyes beheld 
him form his first letters, my hand has many a 
time guided his finger over that globe that you 
see there; for I had the distinguished honor of 
being attached to the household of the august 
boy. It was the Joy of my life and will be its 
eternal honor ! Others may look upon such 
duties as lowly; I would not have exchanged 
them for those of superintendent of the palace. 
You may have heard, sir, that there was a revo- 
lution in 1830?” 

“Oh, yes,” said the young man, “the more 
that it completed our ruin, in some way. I have 
forgotten now exactly how.” 

“It was a great calamity to me, beyond a 
doubt; still it was the cause of others that were 
yet more serious. As for myself, I am not 
rifraid to say that I was but little affected by 
1 hose misfortunes that fell to my personal share. 
I lost everything that can stimulate the noblest, 
tenderest affections in this world. It would, 
however, be impossible, beyond a doubt, for me 
to make you understand what was my grief, the 
utter, frightful void that filled my life, which 
thenceforth was without an aim. A single word 
will suffice; had it not been for the support of 
my faith as a Christian, I should have taken my 
own life.” 

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Vitrac, much 


91 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

affected by the evident sincerity of this reminis- 
cent grief. 

“I expected that you would be astonished,” 
said Mme. de Rimont. “Besides, other people 
than you have thought that I was mad. May 
God in his mercy grant, sir, that you may never 
be more mad than I am ! To conclude, life was 
spared to me; but, deprived as I was of the 
pleasure of accompanying my beloved princes 
into exile, I determined that I, too, would con- 
demn myself to exile in a manner of my own. 
What! Could I have walked each day upon 
that soil from which they were proscribed? 
Could I have passed beneath their palace walls 
where they dwelt no longer? Could I have min- 
gled with that crowd of perjurers and ingrates, 
I, who would have laid down my life in the 
cause of justice and fidelity? Ro, it was impos- 
sible ; I fled from all that reminded me of those 
odious crimes. In days of terror my mother 
had concealed God in her abode; I concealed i^y 
king. Behold him there; his likeness sanctifies 
my poor abode, his memory embellishes it ; my 
last breath will be drawn beneath his eyes. 
When I came up those stairs that you ascended 
but now I made a vow that I would never go 
down but once, borne in my coffin. I made a 
vow that I would be as a dead woman, and I 
am dead. Question the whole world and see if 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


95 


i am living. For your sake, however, I have 
emerged from my living tomb, for I felt a shud- 
dering through my old bones when I learned 
what you were about to do. Marquis de Vitrac, 
it is a phantom from beyond the grave that ad- 
jures you not to be guilty of a base action!” 

Mme. de Rimont had risen from her chair as 
she went on, and now stood erect, with her stern 
gaze bent upon her nephew, almost touching him 
with her long, lean finger and trembling with 
indignation through all her frame. She was 
sublime if in her senses, frightful if controlled 
by madness. It was not in her nephew’s power 
to solve this question, however. His ideas were 
wild and whirling, and he asked himself whether 
he were still alive and waking, or whether this 
was some mad nightmare that had come to dis- 
turb his reason; or whether, indeed, his soul, 
parted from his body, had not winged its flight 
to some remote realm of space peopled by fantas- 
tic shapes. The dress, the manner, the voice of 
her who addressed him thus, her story, the way 
in which she looked at things, everything, even 
to the language in which she expressed her 
thoughts, bore the stamp of oddness and uncon- 
ventionality. He wondered how the strange 
scene would end, whether he would ever find 
himself again outdoors among people who 
dressed and talked and acted like himself. As 


96 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


for saying a word for himself, that was a matter 
that lay quite beyond his faculties. 

At this juncture, and most opportunely, the 
door opened without the bell having rung to her- 
ald the approach of a visitor. A young girl en- 
tered the room, her head covered merely by a bit 
of lace thrown carelessly over her blonde hair ; 
she was rather tail, with an intellectual forehead, 
and clear, frank eyes that seemed unusually 
thoughtful for her apparent age of twenty. The 
rapid glance that she cast upon Vitrac was de- 
void of embarrassment and likewise of surprise. 

As for him, he was as much astounded to see 
this pretty young creature among these grim 
surroundings as he would have been to behold a 
rose-tree blooming upon a snowdrift at the North 
Pole. He quickly recovered courage and ceased 
to doubt that he was in the land of the living at 
sight of the newcomer, who seemed to have a 
very healthy love of life and to have nothing at 
all of the ghostly sprite about her. 

“Madame,” said the young lady, in a sweet 
but firm voice, “ this is the time when I generally 
read you the Gazette. Perhaps I am disturbing 
you to-day, however?” 

“ Not at all, my dear Henriette. I have fin- 
ished my conversation with my nephew, whom 
you will allow me to present to you: M. le 
Marquis de Vitrac; and speaking in his behalf, 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


97 


I have every reason to believe that he will for- 
give the interruption. The talk of a woman of 
my age is not always agreeable to a man of 
his.” 

The young people saluted each other with that 
prevalent style of bow that is the direct converse 
of the Arab dance, in which all the body moves 
except the feet ; they ducked their heads at each 
other without moving a muscle of the body. 
Vitrac was beginning to acquire the manners of 
the age. 

“ Good heavens ! what an extraordinary bow !” 
exclaimed the comtesse. “I suppose those are 
what you call polite manners in the society in 
which you move !” 

This seemed to vex Mdlle. Henriette ; she said 
nothing, but gathering up her dress in her two 
hands, made a sweeping, old-fashioned courtesy, 
resumed her position and stood waiting the re- 
sponse. The marquis, as he subsequently con- 
fessed, was never more taken aback in his life. 
While internally fuming at Mme. de Eimont he 
was reflecting: 

“ My aunt might serve as a pattern for a wo- 
man who wanted to be disagreeable, but she has 
awfully pretty readers. What in the world can 
I find to say to this charming creature, who must 
be a duchesse’s daughter at the very least ! ” 

Mdlle. Henriette, for her part, v/as playing 


98 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


with the helmet of Saint Louis, making the 
visor move up and down, which was her favorite 
amusement when she came to visit her venerable 
friend. While this was going on she was ob- 
serving Vitrac in the mirror. 

‘‘So,” she said to herself, “that is the terrible 
man who robs all the actresses of their hearts ! 
Who would ever suppose him capable of such 
things to look at him and listen to him, or rather 
not listen to him, for he seems to have lost his 
tongue. I might have spared myself the trouble 
of coming a quarter of an hour too soon, expressly 
to be dazzled by him !” 

Mme. de Rimont thought that it was time for 
her to take a hand in, so as to save the family 
honor. 

“My dear child,’’ she said, “you must not 
think that my nephew is a pupil of the Abbe de 
I’Epee; but the poor boy has not recovered from 
the stupefaction that he was thrown into by the 
relation of my story, and the worst of it is that 
he does not believe it.” 

The girl’s eyes said to Vitrac: “You are 
wrong, but it must be acknowledged that it does 
seem rather incredible.” 

“My dear,” pursued the comtesse, “will you 
tell this embryo Saint Thomas when it was that 
I first came to this house?” 

“The second of August, 1830,” the young 


PASTE, OR i;IAMONDS ? 


99 


lady unhesitatingly replied. ‘'I had it from my 
grandfather, to whom the house belonged in 
those days. 

“And how many times have I put my foot 
outside that door?” 

“Never.” 

“How many persons have entered it?” 

“For fifteen years,” said Henriette, with the 
utmost gravity, “I have not seen a soul in this 
room excepting my father, Petrouille, and the 
three musketeers.” 

“The three musketeers!” shouted Rene, who 
felt his hallucination again taking possession of 
him. 

His distressful air capped the climax of the 
young person’s amusement. She replied: 

“Why, yes. You know there are four in the 
novel. Besides, sir, you have already made the 
acquaintance of one of them.” 

“I — acquainted with one of the musketeers?” 

Mdlle. Henriette could no longer restrain her 
merriment; it had been threatening to explode 
for some time. The fit lasted fully ten seconds, 
that appeared all too short to Yitrac, dazzled as 
he was by that casket of glittering pearls, those 
rosy dimples and the torrent of silvery notes. 
The comtesse, however, frowned upon the exhi- 
bition. In her days a modest smile was the 


100 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


utmost that was permitted to a young lady in 
presence of a stranger. She said to the too 
hilarious nymph : 

“My dear child, my poor old companion needs 
you to thread her needles for her. In fiv'e min- 
utes I will be ready for you. ’ ’ 

The girl understood, made Vitrac another 
ceremonious reverence, and left him alone with 
his austere relative. 

“Now, nephew,” thQ latter resumed, “we are 
about to part. May God and the spirits of our 
forefathers teach you the right path to follow ! 
I have done my duty ; it rests with you how to 
determine whether you will drag the dear old 
name through the mire.” 

Rene, his eyes fastened upon a certain door, 
seemed to be sunk in his reflections, and Mme. 
de Rimont supposed, but she may have been 
mistaken, that he was thinking of his actress. 
After a momentary interval of silence he said: 

“It seems to me, aunt, that we have not 
looked at this matter in the right light. I am 
willing to admit that the marriage in question 
is slightly irregular, and I may say to you 
parenthetically that I never heard the fir^t word 
of it until twenty-four hours ago. Do you know 
anything of Mme. Lepiez? Can you assure me 
that her character is such that a respectable man 
ought not to marfy her? Can you mention any 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


101 


circumstance in her life that tells against her? 
You are engaged just now, but permit me to see 
you again. You will learn what you can about 
her, we will talk the matter over, and you will 
see that I am not so lost to all ties of kindred as 
I seem to be — since I do seem to be so, as it 
appears.” 

The comtesse took her turn of reflection. 
Suddenly an inspiration seemed to strike her. 

“ISTephew,” she said, “be here to-morrow at 
this same hour. I will let you go now for to- 
day.” 

She gave him her hand, and he crushed the 
poor old dry joints together in his grasp. The 
comtesse uttered a cry that was one of mingled 
pain and indignation. 

“Nephew,” she exclaimed, “every gentleman 
ought to know how to kiss a woman’s hand. 
While you are one still, take a lesson how to 
do it.” 

Was it the words that she spoke, unlike any 
that he had ever heard before? Or was it that 
display of majesty in misfortune and old age? 
Or, who can tell? maybe it was another and a 
gentler ray that lighted the way for this bewil- 
dered wayfarer. Be it what it might, Yitrac 
was deeply touched. Bending upon one knee, 
he grazed with his lips in the good old style the 
hand that was extended to him. He did it so 


102 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

nicely that Mme. de Kimont could not help say- 
ing to him: 

“Well done, nephew. Blood will tell!” 

He withdrew^ and Mdlle. Henriette returnep 
and resumed her daily task. When the Gazette 
was done with, without further incident, the 
comtesse, as was her custom, gave her reader-in- 
ordinary a kiss upon the forehead. The latter 
was dying to talk about Yitrac, but she was not 
afforded the pleasure she desired. The comtesse, 
however, as she dismissed her, gave her this 
command in the imperious tone that seemed 
to be natural to 'her: 

“Dear heart, ask your father to come to my 
room to-morrow at this hour. You need not 
accompany him.” 

“But the Gazette^ madame?” 

“Your father will supply the place of the 
Gazette^ my child.” 

Mdlle. Henriette thought that the night would 
never come to an end, her curiosity kept her 
so wide awake. 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


103 


s. 

Next day Vitrac was the first to reach his 
aunt’s abode. He kissed her hand as if he had 
been performing that ceremony all his life. 

“I understood what you were thinking of 
j^esterday,” she said. ‘‘ You thought that old 
judges are not the safest ones when certain cases 
come up for trial. Perhaps you even thought 
that your aunt is a little out of her mind.” 

Rene was politely beginning to disavow this, 
when his relative stopped him with a motion of 
her hand and continued : 

^‘For your greater enlightenment I have re- 
quested the presence of a man who will be here 
presently. He is not swayed by the prejudices 
of my time, since he is comparatively young, 
nor by those of my class, since he is a bourgeois. 
Moreover, he knows all the ins and outs of 
Parisian life. Vfe will submit your case to him, 
and the opinion that he will give you will be an 
unbiased one; for I give you my word that ho 
does not know the first thing about it. I admit 
that the gravity of his demeanor may be a sin 
in your eyes, but really you cannot expect me to 


104 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


number a debauchee among my friends — present 
company always excepted, of course.” 

Vitrac bowed good-naturedly. He could not 
help feeling a kindly sympathy for this old lady, 
his only relative, who showed so much readiness 
and good sense for a person at her time of life. 

“My dear aunt,” he said, “I assure you that 
I am not a debauchee, and if I am the only one 
you know — ” 

Mme. de Rimont raised her eyes to heaven 
with an unconvinced air, and applied a hand- 
kerchief saturated with eau de cologne to her 
nostrils. 

“Still,” she groaned, “you never got that hor- 
rible scent of tobacco that you have brought into 
my drawing-room from a young ladies’ board- 
ing-school. Nephew, nephew!' I tell you that 
the pipe never goes without the pot-house, the 
pot-house without the cards, the cards without 
the money-lenders, and the money-lenders with- 
out Clichy Prison, where I have seen so many 
young men of family bring up!” 

Vitrac was on the point of rejoining that in 
our days smokers do not have to go and hide 
themselves away to enjoy their favorite vice, 
that the pot-houses have shared the fate of the 
leper hospitals, that cards, like tobacco, are to 
be met with pretty much everywhere, that the 
money-lenders lend their money, just as they 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


105 


give their daughters, to the millionaires, and 
finally that Clichy Prison was offered for sale 
without being able to find a purchaser. 

Time was not accorded him, however, to 
broach this chapter of his aunt’s supplementary 
education; the door opened, and Petrouille an- 
nounced : 

“M. Flamel.” 

When the old notary recognized Yitrac he was 
first immeasurably astonished, then he was 
seized by that terrible despair of the criminal 
caught in the commission of the act that he had 
hoped never to have to suffer in his lifetime. 

There was certainly nothing that could touch 
his professional integrity nor his reputation as 
an upright member of the community ; but, ac- 
customed as he was to grasp situations and their 
attendant consequences at a glance, Flamel 
scented danger in this as yet unexplained phe- 
nomenon, the presence of Yitrac in the apart- 
ment of his high-toned tenant. In the look that 
he cast upon the young man there was the in- 
tense terror that is evinced by every animal, man 
or beast, that is unexpectedly entrapped. On the 
other hand, his aunt’s revelations had put Yitrac 
on his guard, although he was very far from sus- 
pecting who was the judge before whom he was 
to be summoned to appear. He retained his fac- 
ulty of observation and Flamel’s terror did not 


106 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

escape his notice. The question now was, why 
this discomposure was so great. He awaited 
events, instinctively foreseeing that the comedy 
was about to open and that the character that he 
was to play in it would not be the most diflScult 
one. 

In the meantime the good man was making 
his compliments to the comtesse with great obse- 
quiousness, almost approaching humility. 

‘‘Good-day, good-day, my dear M. Flamel,” 
said the dowager, without giving him her hand. 
“ I see that your daughter has told you what I 
asked her to tell you. Your health continues 
good?” 

“ And yours, Mme. la Comtesse?” 

“ Not much to boast of, I am sorry to say. It 
is my legs now that are making me pay the pen- 
alty of my sins; they refuse to obey me any 
longer and keep me from moving about much. 
But it was not to talk about my old body and its 
ailments that I asked you to come here to-day ; I 
will tell you what I have upon my mind. In the 
first place, let me present you to my nephew, the 
Marquis de Vitrac.” 

Flamel might have objected that his age en- 
titled him to have the marquis presented to him 
instead of his being presented to the marquis; 
but he did not insist on the punctilio, and made 
his bow to the young man as if he had been a 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


107 


mandarin fresh landed from the Celestial Em- 
pire. 

“Nephew,” the comtesse began, “this is the 
man of whom I was speaking to you. As my 
little friend was telling you yesterday, he is the 
owner of this house, which was his father’s be- 
fore him.” 

“M. le Marquis knows my daughter?” he 
queried, with as unconcerned an air as if he 
had been asking: “Shall I have to have my 
right leg cut off, too?” 

“ He has seen Henriette,” said the aunt. “ But 
let me proceed with my story. Nephew, Master 
Flamel here was my notary ; I may say that he 
was one of the good notaries of Paris. He is an 
honest man, esteemed by every one, and has but 
two faults : he spoils his daughter in the morning 
and in the evening makes it too much a practice 
to leave her alone while he goes and plays domi- 
noes with an old friend of his.” 

Rene was beginning to think that it was great 
fun. Pitiless, as we all are at his age, he made 
believe rummage among his recollections and 
asked : 

“M. Flame], have we not met at that old 
friend’s of yours that my aunt speaks of?” 

“No, sir,” the unhappy man replied, with a 
look that might have softened the heart of a pan- 
ther. “ May it please you, I have never had the 


108 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


honor of setting eyes on you before — ■ But I am 
anxious to know what Mme. la Comtesse wants 
of me.” 

“Read this first,” the old woman directed. 

With one and the same gesture she pointed to 
a chair near the table and the famous number of 
the Figaro spread out in the lamplight. 

Flamel sank into the chair, all in a heap, and 
Yitrac charitably found the article for him. The 
old notary put his double eyeglass astride his 
nose with a hand that trembled like a leaf, and 
then read, line by line, the item which he had 
every reason in the world to consider well 
written. 

“Now,” continued the comtesse, “it becomes 
necessary to inform you that the ‘Marquis de 
V.’ stands before you.” 

Flamel appeared thunderstruck. His histri- 
onic talent was gradually coming back to him. 

“Nephew, what is the name of this — person?” 
asked the comtesse, who presided over the ses- 
sion with the imperturbability of a judge. 

Yitrac was enjoying it still, but was now be- 
ginning to ask himself whether it was not time 
for him to exhibit some anger. With the fore- 
sight that light was about to dawn, and also his 
revenge, he replied : 

“Aunt, I have already told you her name — 
Mme. Lepiez.” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


‘‘Am I expected to carry it written on m. 
heart?” grumbled the old lady. “Well, Mon 
sieur Flamel, will you please tell my nephew if 
a Marquis de Yitrac can marry this creature? 
Who knows her? What has she done? Where 
did her fortune come from? Your business is 
to furnish advice and information to families 
under such circumstances.” 

Flamel drew a silk handkerchief from his 
pocket, under pretense of blowing his nose, and 
surreptitiously wiped the perspiration from his 
forehead. He answered with evident bad humor : 

“Pardon me! It was my business; I am re- 
tired now. Moreover, were I still active, I 
should consider myself at liberty to withhold 
anything that I saw fit. Monsieur le Marquis 
will agree with me that the role of a notary is 
not infrequently the role of a confessor.” 

“Come, come!” said Rene, looking at his man 
with an eye in which there was no great amount 
of affection, “is it possible that Monsieur Flamel 
has served as spiritual father to the lady in 
question?” 

The ex-notary raised his arms toward heaven 
in great agitation. He resembled a spiritual 
director much less than a devil taking a compul- 
sory bath in a basin of holy water. 

“Monsieur le Marquis!” he groaned. “You 
cannot think such a thing as that. How could 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Know Madame — I have forgotten her name 
iready! Observe that I don’t say a word of 
evil about her; I say nothing, having nothing 
on which to base an opinion. Do I look like a 
madcap that is acquainted with actresses? Have 
I the reputation of it? I beg, Madame la Com- 
tesse, that you will not pay any attention to 
what is merely a young man’s joke. Don’t al- 
low it to scandalize you.” 

“By my mother’s virtue!” cried Mme. de 
Bimont, “I ought to be, and of you two I don’t 
know which scandalizes me the more. Am I 
dreaming? Is a Yitrac to marry a woman who 
has exhibited herself upon the public stage, even 
though she be fit for canonization in other re- 
spects? And you, Flamel, whom I expected to 
see in a fury at my very first word, there you 
sit, as impenetrable and undisturbed as if there 
were nothing more than an ordinary, everyday 
marriage in question ! By Heaven ! I hope 
that your daughter may come to you some fine 
day and tell you that she is in love with an 
actor! See what consolation you will get from 
me in that case, my good man!” 

Flamel, caught between two fires, saw that 
his position was becoming untenable. He arose 
and said in the authoritative tone that he had 
been used to assume in his consulting room: 

“Madame la Comtesse, nothing of value can 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


Ill 


be accomplished when we let our anger get the 
better of us; that is not the best way to deal 
with young people. Allow me to retire with 
your nephew ; I will talk the matter over with 
him, he will state his side of the case, and I will 
lay yours before him. I can see merely by look- 
ing at him that he is a man that understands 
what must be done under certain contingencies. 
Monsieur le Marquis, will you do me the honor 
to come to my room when you leave here? We 
can talk there without fear of causing scandal 
to .any one.” 

When he was outside upon the landing, in 
company with the sinner for whose conversion 
he was made responsible, the notary heaved a 
great sigh of relief. He stopped Rene de Vitrac 
by a gesture as he was on the point of speaking. 

“ISTo, no; not here!” he supplicated. ‘‘There 
is nothing so untrustworthy as a staircase.” 

Five minutes later, when Flamel’s sanctum 
had swallowed them up and they had seen that 
the door was securely fastened, these two augurs 
could look each other in the face at pleasure, but 
they did not feel like laughing. The young 
man’s thoughts had been at work as he de- 
scended the four flights of stairs, and the truth 
began to dawn upon him, though only confused 
at yet. It seemed to him that he must have 
been making a fool of himself, and he had 


112 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


brought from his two conversations with his 
aunt breaths, as it were, of an atmosphere that 
was quite novel to him. But more than all be- 
side, the prestige of his companion had vanished 
in his eyes. Flamel was nothing better than an 
old roue, concealing his exploits under the cloak 
of darkness, and at the same time the light of 
Rose’s star began to pale. Without any beat- 
ing about the bush he said to the good man, who 
no longer recognized in him his Vitrac of the 
Rue de la Faisauderie : 

“Monsieur FJamel, permit me to tell you that 
I would cut off the ears of my best friend if he 
should allow himself to be implicated in certain 
plots against me. What is this bit of comedy? 
What does it all mean? That you have never 
seen me before? That Madame Lepiez is an en- 
tire stranger to you? Can it be that you have 
conceived the idea of avenging the obscurity of 
your forefathers by making a gentleman marry 
the dear friend of a bourgeois? 

To the old notary’s credit it must be said that 
what he felt more keenly than anything else in 
this threatening tirade was the attack that it 
made upon his untarnished reputation for up- 
rightness. He proudly raised his head and an- 
swered with dignity: 

“Monsieur le Marquis, the article in the 
Figaro was not produced without a composer. 


PASTE, • OR DIAMONDS ? 


113 


Go to the printer of the paper and ask him to let 
yon see the manuscript; if it is not in my hand- 
writing I authorize you to brand old Flamel 
everywhere as a scamp.” 

“That is all right,” said the young man; “I 
am willing to admit that the article was written 
by you. How does that change the merits of 
the case?” 

“Why, sir, if I had wished to see the cere- 
mony celebrated in the church do you think that 
I would have been so ready to ring in the people 
to the nuptial mass?” 

“It would have been better if you had refused 
to serve mass.” 

“Monsieur le Marquis, you don’t know Rose. 
She would have turned me out of doors like a 
stray cur — and dogs become attached to their 
warm corner when they get to be as old as I 
am.” 

“Never mind. Monsieur Flamel. I only wish 
that my aunt knew the truth about what she is 
pleased to call ‘the gravity of your demeanor.’ 
To speak in good, plain French, I think that the 
right name for it is — hypocrisy!” 

The gray eyes of the old man began to flash 
with an ominous light. One must be something 
more than a saint not to grasp an opportunity 
of resenting a setting-down that one knows to 


114 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


be ill a measure unmerited. Father Flamel was 
a mortal like the rest of us, and the opening that 
his enemy had afforded him was a fair one ; his 
voice gradually assumed a higher key as he 
replied : 

“It is probable that Mme. la Comtesse would 
be less severe than you. Her memory is unim- 
paired, thank God ! and she would recollect the 
day when she came to my father, here, in the 
very room where we are now sitting, to — to con- 
sult him about a state of affairs that was cer- 
tainly very embarrassing. Very fortunately — 
for my father — there happened at that time to 
be an apartment in his house unoccupied. To say 
that it was humble is but a feeble expression of 
the truth. In the course of the last forty-five 
years no disagreeable circumstance has occurred 
— at least I hope there has not — to remind Mme. 
de Rimont that she was not living in her own 
house.” 

The young man understood. “Poor aunt!” 
he sighed. “How she must have suffered!” 

Again a malicious light shone in the old bour- 
geois’s eyes. It was very certain that the good 
man was not animated by any dislike to the no- 
bility; on the contrary, beloved them, and, as 
we have seen, was ready to do them a service, 
but always upon the understanding that he was 
to be allowed to give them a piece of his mind 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


115 


when the occasion offered. I have heard it said 
that there are a good many Fiamels in France. 

“Monsieur le Marquis,” the notary rejoined, 
“don’t allow your pity for your aunt to go too 
far. She has two great comforts. The first, 
which she is undeniably deserving of, is that she 
inspires respect and devotion in every one that 
comes near her. The second, which is a result 
of her modesty, consists in believing that she 
counts for nothing in the business. Everything 
that is given her is a loan to the king; the king 
will pay it back. I am to be ennobled as soon 
as the first Te Deum is chanted in his honor, 
my daughter is to be appointed a maid-of-honor, 
and old Petrouille, foster-sister to Mme. la Com- 
tesse and who serves her for the glory of the 
thing, will be paid off with a good fat pension, 
a part of which will fall to her nephew in rever- 
sion when she dies.” 

«^‘Poor aunt! ” Yitrac repeated. Then, ex- 
tending his hand to Flamel: “I don’t know that 
you will ever be a baron,” he said, “but never- 
theless I esteem you for what you are, from the 
bottom of my heart.” 

“Pooh!” replied Flamel. “I know very well 
that I am an old fool. It is no great matter that 
I try to strike a balance in my ledger and make 
the Chaussee d’Autin atone for the Eue de la 


Faisauderie.” 


116 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


XI. 

Thus did Rose Lepiez’s dreams of love and 
ambition vanish away in smoke, thanks to the 
underhanded proceedings of the old notary. 

The same chain of circumstances restored a 
nephew to Mme. de Rimont, and it was a most 
touching spectacle to behold the reunion of these 
scattered fragments of two extinct families. In 
a week’s time the comtesse had conceived an 
unbounded affection for Rene. She was eter- 
nally singing the same song to Henriette Flamel, 
who, in justice to her, it must be said, listened 
with exemplary patience to the eulogies of her 
old friend. The good old lady would say: 

“You see, my child, there is nothing like 
blood. Is not M. de Vitrac in his threadbare 
clothes a hundred times better-looking than the 
ninnies who hang about your father’s drawing- 
room dressed to kill? He was on the point of 
making a great fool of himself, but I spoke just 
one little word to him, I appealed to his pride of 
family, and there he is, a changed man. He is 
a charming young fellow. If I were twenty 
again he would make me lose my head, and 
there would be another alliance between two of 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


117 


the best families of Auvergne. We might get 
liim into the CJievau-legers and make a captain 
of him were it not for his broken shoulder ; if we 
have to put up with a mere embassy we will try 
and make the best of it. He will not be the first 
of his name that has entered the diplomatic ser- 
vice.” 

While things were going along thus Vitrac 
was a perfect model of a nephew. Before very 
long he was to be seen climbing to his aunt’s 
fifth floor several times a week. When he failed 
to show himself there for three days running, 
a citizen decorated with a medal was sure to ap- 
pear the next day at the Treasury Department 
v/ith a note for him. They were of all sorts and 
conditions, big and little, fat and lean, young 
and old, but every one of them was an Au- 
vergnat, like Pigagniol, who had got to know 
the attendants so well by this time that he shook 
hands with them. One evening the young mar- 
quis said to Mme. de Rimont: 

“ My dear aunt, you will min yourself in por- 
ter-hire. Why don’t you just put your letters 
to me in the mail?” 

‘‘Don’t worry about my pocketbook, my pretty 
nephew,” replied the comtesse. “These good fel- 
lows are only too happy to do a service to the last 
descendant of a family of their country and an 
old friend of their king. They know very well 


118 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


that they won’t lose anything by waiting. Do 
you believe that Petrouille brings up my wood 
and water and scours my floors? The poor girl 
could not do it ; she would have been dead twen- 
ty years ago. Besides, no one ever knows when 
a letter will reach that is sent by mail ; messen- 
ger is much safer. And then I don’t care to 
have the police prying into all my letters.” 

Mme. de Kimont, in fact, was not very en- 
thusiastic over the wonderful advances in science 
that the world has witnessed in the last half- 
century, or rather, to speak correctly, she was 
ignorant of the greater part of them. The rail- 
way, the steamboat, the electric telegraph, the 
omnibus, even, were things that were quite un- 
known to this hermit. She read their names in 
the Gazette^ but her intelligence seemed to have 
become dead under the sudden snapping of all 
the ties that had bound her to life and refused to 
consider them. She was even displeased when 
any one attempted to explain to her these mar- 
vels that she regarded with distrust. What 
mattered all these transformations that were val- 
ueless in her eyes as long as the king did not 
come to his own? 

As to this last mentioned entity, something 
more than human in her thoughts, it had gradu- 
ally veiled itself for her in a bright cloud of un- 
reality which, while rendering it less distinct, 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


119 


took from it none of its majesty. The little 
prince of ten had grown to be a young man, 
then had suffered no further change, like the 
demi-gods of old, who forever retained their 
youth and strength and beauty unimpaired. 
Mme. de Rimont would certainly have died of 
shock if the last of the Bourbons had appeared 
before her with a head that was beginning to be 
sprinkled with white. 

There happened, moreover, this unforeseen 
circumstance, that in finding her nephew she 
lost her Gazette, that is to say, the last of the 
ties that united her to the outer world. Yitrac 
had contracted the habit — certainly a most 
meritorious one — of making a daily visit and 
coming at that very precise moment when 
Mdlle. Henriette, her pretty blonde hair flying 
in the wind, was skipping lightly up the stairs 
in fulfillment of her diurnal functions as reader- 
in-ordinary. Now and then the two young peo- 
ple would meet on FlamePs landing, and on such 
occasions the length of time that it took them 
to get up those four flights of stairs would have 
led one to believe that they were octogenarians. 
In place of reading, they chatted. Mme. de 
Rimont would have her share in the conversa- 
tion for a while, then her chin would decline 
gently upon her linen collar and the chatter 
would go on, but in lower tones. Sometimes 


120 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


there would be nothing said, which is worse yet. 
We all know that we must look out for children , 
when they do not make a noise. 

The comtesse evinced no distrust, however. 

It seemed as if she knew as little about the in- 
ventions of former days as she did about those 
of ours. Love appeared to be as unknown a 
quantity to her as steam or electricity; but if 
there seemed to be but little probability of a 
locomotive ever entering her apartment, the case 
was not at all the same with Love. He came 
steaming up under her very eyes with the speed 
of an express train, though with less noise, and 
the travelers themselves had no idea of the 
ground that they were getting over, although 
they found the trip one of the pleasantest in the 
world. 

At the approach of Easter the young lady and 
her revered friend had a consultation that ap- 
peared to interest them greatly, more particu- 
larly the younger of the two. When Vitrac 
came in his aunt said to him, comformably to 
the programme that had been decided on by 
Henriette, who generally decided, although she 
did not look like such a person, whether the 
weather was to be sunshine or showers in the 
establishment : 

“Nephew, I invite you to dine with me to- 
morrow, to meet some company.” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


121 


A dinner at Mme. de Eimont’s ! At first the 
nephew appeared quite dumfounded, then he in- 
quired, with a look at Henriette, to whom his 
question did not appear particularly offensive : 

“To dine — with mademoiselle, no doubt?” 

“Oh, no!” said “mademoiselle,” with a shake 
of her blond head. “It is a man’s dinner, that 
comes off every year, always on the same day. 
You will - dine in company with — the mus- 
keteers.” 

Try as hard as he might Rene had to go away 
without receiving any further information, with 
an order from his aunt not to make his appear- 
ance before seven o’clock ; but Henriette found 
an opportunity of saying to him, when the com- 
tesse was not listening: 

“You may come a quarter of an hour ahead of 
time.” 

With a mind prepared for anything that 
might happen, Vitrac made his appearance on 
Easter Sunday at forty-four minutes past six, 
with that dress-coat on his back which, if Rose 
was to be believed, was so becoming to him. 
This garment, which had been ordered especially 
for the Rue de la Faisauderie, was now casting 
its radiance upon the Chaussee d’Autin! Un- 
fathomable indeed are the ways of destiny! 

There was a table with covers for six in course 
of preparation in the salon, and about it was 


122 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


fluttering a white- aproned young waitress, busily 
engaged in giving the finishing touches to the 
details of the feast. So white was her hand and 
so slender her wrist that Vitrac applied his lips 
to them and kept them there a century, as soon 
as he saw that Mme. de Rimont, who was doubt- 
less detained by the* cares of her toilette, was not 
there to put in her claim to priority in the cere- 
mony. 

“Oh, sir, do not hinder me!” said Henriette, 
for it was she. “The guests will be here in a 
moment, and then I must be gone. Petrouille 
has so much to do in the kitchen that she can- 
not help me.” 

Vitrac offered his services as assistant in place 
of the absent Petrouille,' and while the work did 
not get on any more expeditiously, the chattering 
was kept up at a great rate. 

“What a pity it is,” said Master Rene, “that 
you are not to dine with us!” 

“I would give all the balls that I am looking 
forward to this spring if I might only be the 
seventh guest,” the girl made answer. “Only 
to think of seeing you sitting there as master of 
the house, facing your aunt!” 

“What!” exclaimed Vitrac. “I, sitting there 
in the center of the table, with four gentlemen 
that I don’t know in the least! Good gracious! 
what, am I to say to them?” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


123 


wonder if it can be that you are timid?” 
queried Henriette with a perfectly straight face. 

“Alas! only too timid. If I were less so — ” 

“What would you do?” 

“I — I would tell you — ” 

Mademoiselle stuck her pretty nose down 
among the flowers that filled the basin of the 
epergne, under pretense of seeing if the roses 
were fresh. Even thus may a fair huntress in 
the early days of her career hasten to conceal 
herself behind a friendly bush when she thinks 
that a gun is about to be discharged. Vitrac’s 
gun did not explode, however. 

“I would tell you,” said he, completing his 
sentence, “I would have told you long ago — how 
deeply I feel your kindness toward my aunt.” 

“There!” she replied, with a smile that had a 
spice of malice in it; “the deed is done; the cat 
is out of the bag; you have told me. I did you 
a great injustice. You are not' a bit timid. 
Come! don’t look so angrily at me.” 

He retorted upon her, losing his head a little, 
as in those former times when he went cutting 
anb slashing with his saber among the Prus- 
sians. 

“I am angry, but not with you — and yet I 
might very well be. You make fun of my 
silence, wherein lies my unhappiness. Ah! 
mademoiselle, if you were in my place you would 


124 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


not be so ready to laugh, and, above all, you 
would not be surprised at a fellow’s being a little 
tongue-tied now and then.” 

She looked upon her interlocutor and beheld 
the moist light shining in his eyes. Then she 
saw clearly what it was that was making Rene 
suffer thus, and her heart gave a great bound of 
gladness within her bosom at the wished-for 
discovery. Vitrac went on, wrapped up in his 
bitter thoughts : 

“Would you choose to have me like my aunt, 
who believes that everything is hers by right, 
and would accept the riches of the Indies, merely 
saying: ‘The king will pay you’? 

“Why not?” answered Henriette, who had 
quite discarded her levity. “There is more 
than one king in the world. Your aunt is quite 
right, and I adore her. What I have done for 
her in the past, and whatever I may do for her 
in the future, is only an investment at high rate 
of interest. I shall get my money back — the 
King will pay me.'” 

She was like a young Sybil, as she spoke thus, 
with radiant face and flashing eyes. Yitrac 
scarcely dared believe his ears, and was upon the 
point of forgetting every obstacle and throwing 
himself upon his knees before this creature that 
so abounded in grace and goodness, but just at 
that moment the hour of seven rang out from 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


125 


beneath the petticoats of the charger on the man- 
telpiece, and Mme. de Rimont appeared upon the 
scene, walking feebly, but as erect as ever, and 
with head well up, the snowy folds of her hand- 
kerchief escaping from her hands, that lay crossed 
upon her waist. Almost simultaneously the bell 
rang in the ante-chamber. 

“The musketeers! I am off!” cried Henri- 
ette, who flew away as light as a bird. 

Yitrac was abruptly awakened from his 
dream, but it seemed to him that it was only to 
fall into another one. Four men came into the 
room, whom he recognized at the first glance, 
although they had doffed their jackets of corded 
velveteen and assumed frock-coats of such 
strange and fearful shapes as to make them 
worthy of a place in a museum of antiquities. 
Pigagniol marched at their head; evidently he 
was the leader of the band. Then came Masse- 
boeuf, bent with age, who was about to return 
forever to his dear land of Auvergne; then 
Lapouzade the colossal, he who carries a piano 
unaided on his shoulders, disclosing meanwhile 
his tusks of ivory in a smile that sends children 
shrieking in terror to their nurse’s arms; Bati- 
foulier, in his capacity of junior member, 
brought up the rear, and the reflection that he 
was about to sit for the first time at the table of 
“Madame la Comtesse” paralyzed every faculty 


. 126 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


of his soul, although he had the reputation of 
being one of the superior intellects of the cor- 
poration. 

The “musketeers,” who had evidently been 
furnished with their cue beforehand, first went 
and made their reverence to the king, and then 
performed their salutations before Mme. de Ri- 
mont with all the grace of so many Hercules 
stooping to pick up some trifie of two or three 
hundred weight. Finally they made their re- 
spects to Vitrac, who received them in mute 
amaze. Whereupon they all took their seats at 
table without further ceremony. 

While the four “ Auverpins,” tucked into their 
napkins, like so many Greeks of the days of 
Phidias in their chlamydes, were devoting their 
attention to the good things, the comtesse told 
her nephew of the origin and the intention of the 
gathering. For the last forty-five years the com- 
missionaires of the quarter had been serving 
her gratuitously, carrying her letters, bringing 
up her wood and water, and waxing her wood 
floor. In the beginning the original “Musket- 
eers” — all of whom had been dead now for many 
and many a long day — had imposed these labors 
on themselves for the love of Petrouille, who was 
then a young and pretty girl; but Mme. de Ri- 
mont never had an idea that these honest fellows 
were actuated by any other motive than devotion 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


127 


to their king. In after days this self-imposed 
servitude had imperceptibly transformed itself 
into established usage, and gradually, from gen- 
eration to generation, these brave boys had come 
to look upon the comtesse as a sort of lady para- 
mount to them to whom tribute was due from 
each and every loyal son of Auvergne. She, on 
her side, faithfully observant of the ancient cus- 
toms of her family, did her good henchmen the 
honor of inviting them to her table once a year, 
and this arrangement was satisfactory to every- 
body until such time as a better state of things 
should prevail. 

Petrouille handed around the various dishes, 
and was not inattentive to the glasses of her fel- 
low-countrymen. At first it required some de- 
gree of force to fill them ; toward the close cir- 
cumstances were altered ; but all Auvergnats are 
silent drinkers. Save for the clashing of jaws 
one might have thought that he was in a sick- 
room. 

When the dessert came on the table Petrouille 
gave a signal, whereupon Pigagniol arose and 
took from his pocket a speech written in a hand 
that Vitrac recognized. He had come to know 
Henriette’s writing very well by this time. The 
well-turned, not quite so well-delivered, compli- 
ment was an innovation in honor of Vitrac, al- 
though to all appearances it was addressed to the 


128 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


mistress of the house ; hut after a paragraph of 
thanks devoted to the aunt the orator passed on 
to the nephew and never left him more. Every- 
thing that a fresh, young imagination of twen- 
ty, unspoiled as yet and uncontaminated by the 
world, can say to a good-looking young man by 
the aid and procurement of an Auvergnat porter, 
that did Rene listen to on that ever memorable 
day. It may be confidently asserted that pane- 
gyric predominated. If Pigagniol had only had 
the least bit of green embroidery sewed upon the 
front of his coat, and if the object of the eulogy 
had not been sitting there, one might have sup- 
posed that he was listening to an Academician 
reading his discourse over the grave of the last 
of the Vitracs. 

The peroration smacked strongly of the spirit 
of the denouement of la Dame Blanche, which 
was the opera of Henriette’s dearest predilection. 
It brought tears to the eyes of every one there, 
even to those of the young gentleman who was 
therein treated to a beatific vision of his return 
to the castle of his ancestors ; which was equiva- 
lent, for the time being, to promising him a resi- 
dence in a very draughty mansion. It is hardly 
worth while to say that a restoration of this kind 
would have to be preceded by one of another 
character, more important in a general point of 
view. Lapouzade was sobbing bitterly merely 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


129 


at the evocation of the dear land of Auvergne 
•Petrouille had had to run away and take refuge 
in her kitchen; while Mme. de Eimont, sitting 
there still as straight as a statue, never once 
noticed that great tears were rolling down her 
cheeks upon her wide collar. Poor woman ! how 
could she have helped crying when some one was 
tugging at the strings of her poor old heart by 
speaking before her on the three loves of her life- 
time : Auvergne, the glory of her race, and the 
king ! 

Pigagniol wound up his discourse with a com- 
pound toast, the names that figured in which it 
will require no great ingenuity to guess at. The 
company shouted: ^^Vive le Roi ! Vive Ma- 
dame la Comtesse! Vive Monsieur le Mar- 
quis!^"* Petrouille, who had reappeared upon 
the scene, added in a piping voice : “ Vive Made- 
moiselle and, without doing injustice to any 
one, it may be said that it was she who had the 
success of the evening. She showed herself 
worthy of it, moreover, by her prudence in mak- 
ing use of it. She knew what Auvergnats are, 
and that there comes a time when they have a 
way of becoming adhesive to the table, just in 
the same way that cement hardens under the 
influence of moisture; so she took them by 
the shoulders and shoved them gently out of 
doors, and for the first time during the day 


130 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

nephew and aunt found themselves alone to- 
gether. 

Seen through the medium of the single thim- 
bleful of Malaga that she had drunk, everything 
appeared rose-colored to the comtesse, beginning 
with Vitrac. It was far, far away in the past, 
now, that day when she had been near turning 
him from her door forever. If her tiny apart- 
ment had been the least bit bigger than it was, 
she would have offered him a bedroom in it upon 
the spot, and the best of it is that the young 
man would not have declined. The situation 
offered so many advantages. 

Don’t allow yourselves to run away with the 
idea, moreover, that Mme. de Rimont was of 
the same opinion as la Dame Blanche. We all 
have some bit of selfishness stowed away in some 
corner of our heart, and I would be willing to 
bet a small amount that Saint Vincent de Paul 
was occasionally thinking of himself while he 
was running about the streets at night picking 
up little children in the snow. It was for her 
own sake, may it please you, that the comtesse 
had picked up her nephew ! 

“Rene, my friend, you will come and see me 
every day.” 

“Yes, aunt; at five o’clock.” 

“You must secure a lodging for yourself as 
near to my house as possible.” 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS? 131 

“Yes, aunt; directly across the way, if pos- 
sible.” 

“And you will never leave me more. I think 
that I have cured you of your hankering for 
mesalliances. Come, now, be frank : do you re- 
gret that lady?” 

“Never speak of her again, I beseech you, un- 
less you wish to see me drop down and die of 
shame. ’ ’ 

“Good! we won’t say anything more about 
her, and you will see that there is nothing like 
the life of a bachelor. ’ ’ 

“Yes, aunt; but it is not cheerful to grow old 
without children.” 

“Nevermind, you will do like me; you will 
come across a nephew late in life. Still, the 
king may come to his ov/n again, and then you 
will be one of the greatest matches in France.” 


132 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


' XII. 

The Tarpeian Rock is near the Capitol. 

Early the following morning Henriette went 
up to her old friend’s apartment to learn if 
everything had passed off satisfactorily. 

“As nicely as could be, thanks to you, sweet- 
heart. And what a surprise that address was 
to us! You little hypocrite! Who would have 
ever thought that you have a command of lan- 
guage equal to M. de Chateaubriand? I’ll bet 
that you will be writing the speeches of a peer 
of the realm some of these days, when I shall 
have whispered a couple of words in the king’s 
ear.” 

“Oh, madame! perhaps we might be very 
happy without the king’s assistance, if you 
would only consent to have it so.” 

“Good! There’s a little girl who wants to 
get married right off the reel ! And so you are 
looking to me for assistance, darling?” 

“If you do not consider me unworthy cf it,” 
the candidate said with a fine reverence. 

“You, my dear child! A prince would not 
be too good for you.” 

“Thanks, madame; I do not ask so much as 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


133 


that. A simple marquis would answer my re- 
quirements.” 

Mme. de Rimont fairly gasped with amaze- 
ment, and her astonishment could not have been 
greater if she had tumbled, at one single flight, 
from her fifth floor down into Father Flamel’s 
apartment. Her first impulse was to mark her 
sense of the impertinence of tho young creature, 
who would thus have entangled her nephew in 
an unworthy alliance, by treating the culprit 
with the utmost degree of scorn that she was 
capable of; but, after all, Henriette had some 
claim to indulgence. The comtesse was merci- 
ful to her, comparatively speaking. 

“A Vitrac!” she said, with a slight trembling 
of the hands that manifested the constraint that 
she was imposing on herself. “You have not 
such very bad taste, mademoiselle. My nephew, 
however, will only marry a young lady of his 
own rank. I am acquainted with his ideas 
upon the subject.” 

Fair Henriette’s spunk arose within her, and 
the color in her pretty cheeks became a shade 
brighter. 

“Still,” said she, drawing herself up like 
a young bantam, “he would have married an 
actress if it had not been for me.” 

“Never, never would Providence have allowed 
that impious action to be consummated! Be- 


134 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


sides, since that mad fit our prodigal son has 
seen the error of his ways and repented.” 

^‘He! madame, I am very well aware of that. 
Was it not I that roasted the fatted calf?” 

And with these words, so pregnant with re- 
proach, Henriette shook the dust from her little 
blue slippers and left the room. 

The prodigal son came along about five o’clock, 
as he was in the habit of doing. He found his 
aunt more erect than ever, with very bright eyes 
and heightened, complexion. Had Vitrac been 
less preoccupied he would have sooner noticed 
the strong smell of gunpowder that pervaded 
the small apartment ; as it was he remarked only 
one circumstance : that Henriette was absent. 

The theme that the comtesse selected as the 
subject of their conversation was the advantage 
that a nephew like him might derive from the 
affection of an aunt like herself. A little more 
and she would have offered to Vitrac to adopt 
him. Finally, after a quarter of an hour of this 
effusiveness, there being nothing better to do, 
she asked him to read her the newspaper. 

“What, trespass on the domain of charming 
Henriette? Never!” the young man good- 
naturedly exclaimed. 

“Charming Henriette is in the sulks with me. 
Between you and me, I suspect that she will 


PASTE., OR DIAMONDS ? 


135 


never show her face in my room again. Nephew, 
you are all that I have left in the world!” 

“What!” cried Rene, who had turned quite 
pale. “What has happened?” 

“Nothing; except that I have been compelled 
to give that misguided girl a lesson.” 

“A lesson! And in what, aunt, may it please 
you?” 

“In modesty. That’s what comes of spoiling 
children : they think they must have everything. 
I leave you to guess what the notion was that 
Mdlle. Flamel had got into her head.” 

“I hope that she did not venture to stand up 
for the tricolor flag,” said Vitrac, laughing. 

“You need not laugh, nephew, for her inde- 
corum comes straight home to yourself. Not to 
beat about the bush any longer, the descendant 
of the Flamels requested me to interfere to ar- 
range a marriage between you two; that was 
all!” 

“A marriage between us two!” repeated 
Vitrac, quite dumfounded. “Henriette — Mdlle. 
Henri ette spoke to you on that subject?” 

“She came to the right place with her request, 
didn’t she? Perhaps the setting-down that I 
gave her in the first instance was a little too 
severe; for, after all, the child had no intention 
of doing wrong, and another less well brought 
up than she might have set about accomplishing 


136 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


her end on her own hook, without saying a word 
to me about it. She had plenty of opportunities 
of doing so.” 

“So that is the reason why you two have been 
quarreling?” 

“Good Heavens! Quarrel is not the right 
word to use. Only it is quite plain that that 
girl cannot meet you any more in my apartment. 
She knows that, and I esteem her the more for 
it. I confess that I shall miss her, but what is 
to be done? I could not shut my door against 
my own nephew in order to open it to a stranger. 
Well, what ails you?” 

Yitrac was already flying down the stairs 
with the speed of a madman. He rang the bell 
of the notary’s apartment, whom he had not 
seen since the day of the famous explanation. 
Neither of them had any very powerful reasons 
for desiring another interview. 

The old notary was toasting his shins by the 
fire in his study ; he did not wear the appearance 
of a particularly happy man. He arose lan- 
guidly upon seeing Yitrac enter the room and 
gave him his hand with a politeness that was 
somewhat dashed with anxiety. Without allow- 
ing him time to ask a question, Rene said to 
him: 

“Monsieur, I have the honor to ask of you the 
hand of mademoiselle your daughter.” 


137 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

Flamel cast a look at his former table com- 
panion to see whether or no he was crazy. 
Vitrac was a little crazy, I admit, but then it 
must be remembered that he was going od 
twenty-six and had never been a notary. The 
good man, who was not easily to be caught nap- 
ping, sank back in his armchair and replied, 
carefully weighing his words : 

“ Monsieur le Marquis, you are doubtless aware 
that when my daughter comes of age she will 
have an income of forty thousand francs, from 
the estate of her mother.” 

“I was not aware of it,” said the young man. 
“ I will beg you to remember, however, that it is 
not very long since you proposed to my considera- 
tion a match where the figures were exactly the 
same.” 

“Monsieur! the comparison is an insult to my 
daughter. Between those two persons — ” 

“ The fault is your own,” Vitrac replied. “ You 
should not have begun by throwing your crowns 
in my teeth. I should call it a strange way of 
insulting a young lady to come and ask her 
father for her hand, bearing the name that 
I do ! ” 

It may be mentioned that, owing to a series of 
circumstances of which Rose Lepiez might have 
been able to furnish the explanation, Flamel was 
not in the best of humors during those days. 


138 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

Smiting the coals in the grate v^ith mighty blows 
of the tongs, he made answer : 

“Monsieur le Marquis, I appreciate your es- 
cutcheon at its full value ; but I wonder why it 
is that you select me, in preference to others, as 
the one who is to have the honor of regilding it. ” 

For the first time in his life Rene learned how 
disastrous are the effects of blind, unreasoning 
rage. He advanced three steps toward Flamel, 
with the evident intention of giving him a chok- 
ing. The old man shouted : “ Help !” The dis- 
tressful cry restored Vitrac to his senses; he was 
about to give a realistic representation of the 
tragedy of the Cid ! Flying from temptation, he 
made his escape by one door just as Chimene 
entered by another. 

“What is the matter, father? What are you 
making such a noise about?” 

“ Because an impudent young fellow came into 
my room as if it was a saw-mill, with an offer 
to be my son-in-law.” 

“ Who was it?” 

“Monsieur le Marquis de Vitrac! A young 
gentleman who had not — !” 

“ Oh, heavens ! what happiness ! It is the very 
thing that I was wishing for!” 

It was many long, weary weeks ago, now, 
since sorrow and black care seemed to have 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


139 


moved into two of the floors of the Flamel man- 
sion and taken up their abode there. On the 
first an unfortunate father was visibly changing 
for the worse day by day. His daughter, still 
as respectful and obedient as ever — excepting 
upon one single point — seemed to have lost the 
faculty of speech and capacity for laughter. On 
the other hand, as if to make up for that, from 
morning till night she kept sighing, sighing, in 
a way fit to melt the heart of a hangman. The 
remainder of the time, if her word was to be 
taken for it, she never closed an eye; but the 
truth was, she did sleep very comfortably, know- 
ing quite well how the crisis would ultimately 
terminate. Flamel was perishing of ennui. Rose 
had held him responsible for her defeat and 
tightly barred her door against him ; his daugh- 
ter was obstinate and withheld from him all 
manifestations of affection; and so his days 
dragged along in the sulky solitude of his 
study, whence he could not muster up courage 
to stir forth. 

Things were not much better with Mme. de 
Rimont. Vitrac never darkened her door now; 
and in losing her fair young friend she had lost 
her only ray of sunshine. It was in vain that 
the faithful Petrouille, her devoted companion, 
had made an effort to read the Gazette to her, 
as she had done in the days when as yet “made- 


140 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

moiselle” did not exist on the surface of the 
globe; the poor creature’s eyes were giving out, 
and the most cogently reasoned article became 
nothing more than an incomprehensible mess 
of nonsense. Petrouille asserted that she had 
“forgotten her reading.” 

And yet she succeeded very well in reading 
the mysterious missives that the musketeers 
brought her up two or three times every day 
from the first floor. She even wrote notes — not 
without great diflSculty, it must be confessed — 
which Pigagniol and his colleagues were forever 
carrying to the treasury department. 

One day she happened to meet M. Flamel on 
the staircase. The old fellow stopped her and 
engaged her in conversation, lamenting that his 
legs and stomach were giving out, and telling 
what a sad thing it was to grow old. The crafty 
old gossip clasped her hands compassionately 
and made answer: 

“Poor gentleman ! You haven’t got the good, 
cheerful face now that you had a year ago. 
Still, as long as you have mademoiselle with 
you, things are not as bad as they might be, but 
some one will come and carry her off one of 
these days, and that’s the time when you’ll be 
deserving of pity!” 

“My good Petrouille, you need not let that 
alarm you. I shall arrange matters so as to 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 141 

have my son-in-law live with me. I have plenty 
of room for a young couple, and even for some 
children.” 

^^Jesu! they are all alike, these young folks 
that want to marry. They make no bones of 
promising everything.- But the young man has 
his family to fall back on, his house in the city, 
his chateau — he and father-in-law have some 
words — and some fine morning away go the 
young people, in spite of all their promises.” 

The conclusion was self-evident ; Petrouille 
was shrewd enough to refrain from stating it. 
Flamel was thoughtful all that evening. Henri- 
ette no longer touched, anything to eat, at table, 
at least. How did she sustain life? The Lord 
alone and two or three of the best pastry-cooks 
in Paris can throw light on this miracle. 

It needs not to say that she had been brought 
up with too strict a sense of duty to have writ- 
ten the least little line to M. de Vitrac, let alone 
seeing him. Nevertheless, the Auvergnats, in 
their velvet jackets, were passing so frequently 
between the Chaussee d’Autin and the depart- 
ment that the way seemed to be lined with them. 
The last of these embassies was dispatched on 
the day before Ascension, and it was Pigagniol 
who had the honor of conducting it. The dis- 
patch with which he was intrusted contained 
only these words: 


142 PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 

“ Come thees evening speek monsieur the 
father. He is deezided, but you no fly in rage, 
thees time.” 

Vitrac was as gentle as a lamb, although the 
interview opened with a storm of reproaches. 
The poor marquis was accused of sowing discoid 
in every direction. 

“Thanks to you,” Flamel said to him, “my 
daughter is in open revolt against me. Henri- 
ette and your aunt have fallen out. Finally, I 
no longer know where to go to spend my even- 
ings— and this all on account of your fine eyes!” 

Vitrac replied with a mildness that was little 
less than angelic: 

“Monsieur, the evils that you speak of all 
arise from your cross manner of receiving me 
one certain evening. I confess that I was too 
quick-tempered, and I desire to express my sin- 
cere regret, but if you had only said Yes, every- 
thing would have been all right. Mademoiselle 
your daughter would have hugged you for joy, 
and you might now be passing your evenings in 
the company of your two children while waiting 
for something better. As for my aunt, she 
would have made the request of you, in official 
form, and I made a mistake that I did not com- 
mence my suit to you in that way.” 

“Oh, well, my very dear sir, I take you at 
your word. You can have my daughter if Ma- 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


143 


dame de Rimont comes and asks for her, but I 
tell you frankly that I should be greatly aston- 
ished at such a proceeding, knowing as I do the 
ideas held by your respected relative.” Then 
he added with a banteri ng air, for he had caught 
from Rose her habit of constantly making quo- 
tations : 

“ ‘Unless there come the king’s express command.’ ” 

“Parbleu!” cried Yitrac, slapping his fore- 
head with his hand, “you have just shown me 
the way to end the difficulty. Monsieur Flamel. 
You have said it; the command shall come and 
we will all be happy. ” 

“The king will command that you shall marry 
my daughter!” 

“Kings do not command nowadays, but I 
know of some who do not object to write a letter 
whenever their faithful subjects die or are mar- 
ried. You shall see. Before a week is past the 
carrier shall bring a letter that will set every- 
thing straight. One more or less !” 

A week later, in fact, the young diplomatist 
rang the bell at his aunt’s door. Petrouille, who 
had been on the lookout for him for the last five 
minutes, let him in at once. The comtesse’s 
manner was as unconciliatory as ever, and, at 
first, the interview promised to be a squally one, 


144 


PASTE, OK DIAMONDS ? 


but Vitrac did not allow himself to be fright- 
ened, and said: 

“Aunt, I have the distinguished honor of lay- 
ing before you a letter from the king.” 

At first the old woman believed that it was 
some senseless joke. When she was assured 
that no joke was intended, she arose upon her 
feet, trembling through all her frame with emo- 
tion and respect, to touch with her hand the en- 
velope that bore the writing of the illustrious 
child for whom she had been mourning for five 
and forty years. Without reseating herself, and 
wiping the tears from her eyes meanwhile, she 
read the royal approval given to “that union 
that was to bring together two families that had 
remained faithful to the monarchy, one through 
centuries of valor and glorious achievement, the 
other in an honorable succession of lives of spot- 
less integrity.” 

She read it over twice, sighed, frowned, and 
seemed for a moment to be carrying on a strug- 
gle within herself. The conflict was not long. 
Mme. de Rimont kissed the royal signature, 
made a deep reverence in front of the loved por- 
trait, and uttered these simple words : 

“The king has spoken. All that is left for 
me to do is to obey. ’ ’ 

Vitrac soon went down the stairs again, bearer 
of an autograph letter, scarcely legible, from the 


PASTE, OR DIAMONDS ? 


145 


• comtesse to Father Flamel. That honest man 
had promised and he had but one word, nor 
would he have desired to have two. When Rene 
again presented himself before his aunt he was 
accompanied by his fiancee, which greatly hor- 
rified Mme. de Rimont, rigid stickler as she was 
for etiquette; but the kissing that commenced 
forthwith, somewhat indiscriminately, I am 
afraid, quickly deprived her of all power of ob- 
jecting. 

“My dear child, she said, at last, when she 
was enabled to utter an articulate sound, “did I 
not promise that the king would reward you?” 

“Oh, madame!” replied Henriette, “I fully 
expected it, more particularly within the last 
three months.” 

Vitrac whispered softly in. her ear: 

“There is a king who fears neither revolu- 
tions, nor death, nor exile. Do you know his 
name?” 

“Yes, but I dare not speak it aloud.” 

“Then I will speak it for you, darling: it is 
Love.” 


THE END. 





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FONTLUCE. 


I. 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in the days 
when King Louis XIV. ruled over the land, 
there was a very wealthy man, owner of great 
woods and of a hunting-lodge called TErmitage 
de Fontluce, situated not a great way from 
Melun. A sportsman and hunter of the deer of 
no mean ability, but even yet more adventurous 
in his pursuit of the dears, he was a tender- 
hearted Croesus, always ready to relieve beauty 
in distress with the current coin of the realm, 
and never scrutinizing the signature on the obli- 
gation too closely, provided that the hand that 
traced it was soft to the lips. One of the charm- 
ing creatures whom he obliged in this way made 
her way in the world, selected a propitious mo- 
ment to enlighten the king upon the merits of 
her generous creditor, and there we have our 
hero Marquis of Fontluce in less time than it 
would have taken to count out the first hundred 
louis of her debt ; at least, there is every reason 
to believe so, for the experiment was never tried. 

( 147 ) 


148 


FONTLUCE. 


The new-made marquis manifested much alac- 
rity in entering upon his role by taking to wife 
a damsel of good birth and breeding; for he was 
strongly minded to bring into the world a race 
of honest men, which laudable desire, moreover, 
he succeeded in accomplishing. At the same 
time he leveled the hunting-lodge and in its 
place erected a chateau of rather stately aspect, 
which has changed but slightly since those days. 
It is as near a type as may be of the style that 
more than any other impersonated the character 
of its age, depress! ng by reason of its grandeur, 
freezingly correct in architectural detail, an un- 
comfortable abode notwithstanding its ruinous 
cost. 

In this same chateau, along about the begin- 
ning of the month of August, 1885, the dowager 
marquise of Fontluce and the sole heir of the 
name were breakfasting tete-a-tete, quite lost 
among the colossal dimensions of the immense 
dining-room. Although the heat outside was 
roasting, a temperature so cool as to be almost 
dangerous prevailed within the apartment, which 
measured eighteen or twenty feet from its pave- 
ment of black and white marble tiles to the pro- 
jecting beams of its ceiling. Feeling a chill 
creeping over her, Mme. de Fontluce gave orders 
to throw open the three great windows, glazed 
with small square panes, some of which, as was 


FONTLUCE. 


149 


evident by their greenish white color, were co- 
eval with the structure. The warm air, heavy 
with the perfume of new-mown hay, came in 
from the lawn, or meadow, rather, it should be 
called, that ended on the bank of the Seine in a 
hedge that was kept dipt in a merciless rectilin- 
ear monotony. In summer time this impenetra- 
ble curtain served to mask the iron railing which, 
for several hundred meters, supplied the place of 
the park wall in front of the stately dwelling. 
On the other shore of the stream, that only half 
filled its banks at this season of the year, the 
ground rose with a sharper ascent for a distance 
of half a league. The woods of the domain, un- 
touched as yet by the ax, stretched away behind 
the chateau in the direction of the city that lay 
three leagues away. 

Coffee had just been served. The butler retired 
three steps, halted, and in a short, rather military 
tone, gave utterance to the formula that he was 
accustomed to repeat daily at that hour : 

“ Pinaud wants to know what orders you have 
for him.” 

“ The victoria and the Dutch mares and Fran- 
cois to go on the box,” the marquis commanded. 
“ They will have to be at Melun Station to meet 
the four twenty-five train, which will have two 
ladies on board. Let the second coachman be 
there, too, with a cart and working horse, so as 


150 


FOXTLUCE. 


to bring back the trunks and the lady’s-maid. 
Also tell him to be sure and have Lion ready to 
be saddled for me at any time I call for him.” 

The butler was leaving the room ; the marquise 
called him back: 

“ Come back for the orders when breakfast is 
over in the servant’s dining-room. I wish to 
talk the matter over with the marquis.” 

When she was alone with the young chief of 
the family, Mine, de Fontluce asked him : 

“My dear Bertrand, don’t you think that it 
would be pleasanter for those ladies that 3’ou 
should ride in the carriage with them, so as to 
entertain them and get acquainted, rather than 
escort them on horseback, even if you are such 
a brilliant cavalier? If I were you I would take 
the landau and go with it.” 

Bertrand de Fontluce slightly bit his tawny 
mustache, that stood out from his upper lip like 
a cat’s, and replied with the respectful but deter- 
mined coolness that he almost always used when 
speaking to the marquise : 

“Mon Dieu ! mother, you give me credit for 
being more gallant than I am. The reason why 
I ordered my horse was that I want to go and 
get a breath of cool air in the woods, and not to 
fill my lungs with dust in the hot sunlight of the 
high-road. So you see the reason why the vic- 
toria was ordered out.” 


FONTLUCE. 


151 


‘‘Would you allow Madame Sad well and her 
niece to come from Melun unattended?” 

“ They came all the way from America unat- 
tended, and at a time, too, when Miss Flora was 
much less capable of taking care of herself on the 
journey.” 

“But who will show them to the carriage?” 

“ Francois knows them; besides, even if he did 
not, he is a fellov/ of intelligence. It would be 
quite suflScient to say to him: ‘The Paris train 
will set down at the station two American la- 
dies, the widow Sad well and her niece Flora 
Kinsley. They are the parties that you are to 
bring to Fontluce. It would be impossible for 
him to make a mistake, you may be quite cer- 
tain; Fifth Avenue sticks out on them so that 
you could see it a mile off.” 

“My friend,’^ said the marquise, drumming 
with her fingers on the black oak of the table, 
“if your mind is fully made up not to marry 
Mademoiselle Kinsley, you might just as well 
have told me so beforehand. Here I have been 
scheming and planning ever since last March to 
get her to come and pass a couple of days at 
Fontluce. You ought to be aware that those 
ladies always keep their engagement list filled a 
year ahead.” 

“It is exactly for that reason, my dear mother, 
that I choose to stand a little on my dignity. I 


152 


FONTLUCE. 


kaow very well that, in my place, every one 
would run to open the door of the railway car, 
and even act as porter for their baggage, if 
necessary. Miss Flora is used to all that. But 
I don’t do things in just that way. You have 
told me that she might condescend to content 
herself with a marquise’s coronet, at a pinch, 
and that your hotel in the Parc Monceau suits 
her; it remains to be seen if the Chateau of 
Fontluce will appear to her sufficient to satisfy 
her requirements of what such a place should be. 
As long as this question of preponderating im- 
portance remains unsettled, it is quite useless 
that I should tear myself in pieces to please her 
or to see if she is likely to please me. With 
your permission, then, I will give myself a holi- 
day, for to-day, at any rate. To-morrow and 
the day after I shall do my whole duty as mas- 
ter of the house, entertaining persons so distin- 
guished by their — essence. Pardon me the pun, 
which will at least serve to show you that I 
mean to take my petroleum cheerfully when the 
time comes.” 

“Shall I tell you what you will do when the 
time comes? You will put on an air of resigna- 
tion and go about saying: ‘It was my mother 
who insisted on my making this mesalliance!’ 
And wearing your resigned air all the while, you 
will have the handsomest establishment, the 


FONTLUCE. 


153 


finest horses and one of the prettiest wives in all 
Paris. Come, my dear Bertrand, make the sac- 
rifice and go to the station. I would go myself 
were it not that I am forbidden to ride so long a 
distance in a carriage.” 

The matter was finally settled by a compro- 
mise; Bertrand was firm in his resolve not to go 
to Melun, but promised to meet the Americans 
on the road and do escort duty for them on their 
way to Fontluce. This was the way in which 
matters were almost always arranged between 
mother and son, differing as they generally did 
from each other in their opinions upon persons 
and things, and each being too self-willed to 
make an entire surrender, and too fond of tran- 
quillity to carry persistency to the danger point. 

The victoria started for the station at the 
proper time, followed by the English cart. Ber- 
trand had gone out on horseback in the direction 
of the forest a few minutes previously, after a 
second time announcing his intention of making 
a flank march and coming out on the main road 
in season to surprise the two ladies with a polite 
ambush. The marquise stood at her window to 
watch her son pass down the avenue, and as he 
disappeared behind the trees she said to her- 
self: 

“Isn’t he just made to turn a young girl’s 
head at first sight?” 


154 


FONTLUCE. 


She was not aware how true a prophet she 
was, as will be seen presently; the only trouble 
about her prediction was that it did not go far 
enough. 

In due time Mrs. Sad well and Miss Flora Kins- 
ley drove up unattended to the main entrance of 
the chateau, where they were received by the 
marquise, who was naturally much disappointed 
at not seeing Bertrand in his place in the ranks. 

“Did you see nothing of my son? He went 
out on horseback expressly to meet you. Heav- 
ens! I wonder if he has met with an accident!” 

Aunt and niece were women of that stamp who 
always wear a pleasant face, never having had 
any occasion for manifesting sorrow nor time to 
experience ennui; consequently they received 
these interjections, which were somewhat ex- 
aggerated in their expression of anxiety, with a 
charming smile. Their only reply was to extol 
the picturesqueness of the scenery, the magnifi- 
cence of the chateau, and the coolness of the 
apartments. The chairs in the great drawing- 
room, with their straight backs and upholstered 
arms, seemed to them the least little bit uncom- 
fortable, and they were frank enough to say so ; 
but tea being served immediately was sufficient 
to keep them in good humor, and the marquise, 
a sensible woman and a first-class hostess, knew 
how to entertain them by a conversation that 


FONTLUCE. 


155 


was skillfully directed upon topics that would be 
likely to interest them. 

When the dressing-bell rang, at s^ven o’clock, 
the young marquis had not yet made his appear- 
ance; but, to tell the truth, his absence was 
scarcely noticed. If Flora thought of it at all, 
it was only to say to herself: “He probably has 
business that detains him.” 

There are no people like the Americans for 
taking things good-naturedly. In a case like 
this a Frenchwoman would have considered the 
prospect of a marriage as ruined beyond redemp- 
tion, and that it was incumbent on her to go 
into a fit of hysterics that would suffice to draw 
tears of rage from the eyes of her maid. The 
aunt and her niece did not carry matters to any 
such extreme; they spent an hour in arraying 
themselves in charming toilets, just as if they 
were about to dine in company with twenty-five 
people; but it was really for their own satisfac- 
tion that they made this lavish display of ele- 
gance. They contemplated themselves in the 
mirror like women who knew what was what; 
the aunt thought that she was very handsome, 
and the niece found herself remarkably pretty; 
moreover, they were both quite right in their 
appreciations. They resembled each other, just 
as a rosebud that is beginning to open resembles 
the full-blown flower in its magnificence. 


156 


FONTLUCE. 


They came into the drawing-room at the sum- 
mons of the second bell. Mme. de Fontluce was 
awaiting them there, she, too, a very handsome 
woman, notwithstanding the plus quantity of 
years to her credit and the minus of her health. 
Her somewhat sober toilet had no reason to 
fear comparison with the others in point of rich- 
ness and good-taste. Bertrand, however, was 
still absent, and his mother, accustomed as she 
was to control her feelings, began to give way 
to an uneasiness that can be readily under- 
stood. 

At last the announcement was made that M. 
le Marquis had just dismounted, that he begged 
to offer his excuses to the ladies, and requested 
that they would grant him a few moments’ indul- 
gence. He entered the room a quarter of an 
hour later with heightened color and beaming 
eyes, looking very attractive in his evening- 
dress; and the appreciative glance that the two 
Americans favored him with at once set at rest 
any anxiety that Mme. de -Fontluce may have 
felt by reason of the inauspicious opening of the 
interview. 

When they were seated at table, Bertrand said 
to the good-looking widow, whom he had taken 
in : 

“You may imagine, madame, that it was no 
ordinary obstacle that prevented my being pres- 


FOXTLUCE. 


157 


ent to perform a duty as imperious as it is pleas- 
ant. I was delayed by an accident.” 

“An accident!” exclaimed the marquise, who 
saw by her son’s appearance that there was no 
cause for alarm, and rejoiced internally that be 
had such a good excuse to offer. 

“Yes, mother, an accident. I played the part 
of preserver, however, and not that of victim, 
and everything has been put straight, provided, 
always, that these ladies will graciously extend 
to me their forgiveness.” 

These ladies agreed to forgive him, between 
two spoonfuls of an excellent soup. The mar- 
quise called for the circumstances of the acci- 
dent, less from motives of curiosity than to give 
her son a chance of telling a story enlivened by 
that wit in which the young man was by no 
means deficient, but Bertrand refused to re- 
spond. 

“It really amounted to very little,” he said, 
with a modesty that was very becoming in him ; 
“a carriage upset, an old woman in trouble in 
the woods, a wheel that had to be reset; that is 
all there was of it, and you may see that the 
adventure v/as not a very thrilling one.” 

The conversation turned to other subjects; the 
marquis made himself extremely agreeable, and 
it was very evident that he found favor in the 
eyes of his mother’s guests. The dinner, an ex- 


158 


FONTLUCE. 


cellent one and remarkably well served, passed 
as quickly as a dream. 

After dinner he and Flora played a game of 
billiards. The aunt, languid in her embonpoint 
as some splendid odalisque, ensconced herself as 
comfortably as she might in an easy-chair along- 
side Mme. de Fontluce’s, and soon the two ladies 
were chatting as confidentially as two friends — 
I had almost said as two “pals.” 

They had made each other’s acquaintance at 
some charitable entertainment of which the dow- 
ager had been a patroness. A generous contri- 
bution had served to introduce to Mme. de Font- 
luce these two foreigners, who were on the look- 
out to secure for themselves suitable connections 
in good society, and who were, moreover, entirely 
irreproachable. Some day some one will write 
a book entitled “France from a Charitable Point 
of View,” which will explain, as well as another 
book, why it is that certain doors have become 
too narrow — as a consequence of having been 
opened too wide. 

“How is it that, young and good-looking as 
you are still, you have never married again?” 
asked the marquise, seeking to approach the sub- 
ject that lay nearest her heart by a circuitous 
route. 

Mrs. Sad well had never learned the art of con- 
cealing her thoughts. With the straightforward 


FONTLUCE. 


159 


frankness of a clanghter of America, for whom 
business is business, she made answer: 

“I have sometimes had men begin to pay me 
attentions, but my niece is as handsome as I am 
and ten times richer. As long as I continue to 
live with her I shall have to content myself 
with second place. And the young woman 
shows herself so extremely hard to suit.” 

While this was going on Miss Kinsley and 
Bertrand were talking together as unreservedly 
as if they had been comrades and good -fellows 
both. She had hoisted herself up onto the rail of 
the billiard-table, in a somewhat masculine posi- 
tion, and swinging gently to and fro beneath her 
dress of white China crepe two very narrow but 
rather long feet were visible as far as the ankle, 
encased in stockings of black silk and patent- 
leather pumps with shining buckles. She was 
saying to her antagonist between two games, 
smoking a cigarette meanwhile: 

“Isn’t my aunt handsome? It is very hard 
on me! Twenty times, at least, my admirers 
have gone and fallen in love with her. She has 
only ten thousand dollars a year, though, and 
whenever any one makes her dn offer she de- 
clares that she means to keep her fortune for 
her toilet. And that is very discouraging to 
a great many men, you know.” 

“ How does she manage now?” inquired Font- 


160 


FONTLUCE. 


luce, who was nothing if not logical ; “ for she 
must have a good many other expenses to meet 
in these days, as heavy, almost, as that of her 
toilet.” 

“ Oh ! now that my mother is dead and she 
has taken me to live with her, it is I who foot 
the bills for our traveling expenses. That is no 
more than fair, since she only travels to oblige 
me.” 

When they had had enough of knocking the 
balls about and had smoked the requisite number 
of cigarettes, the two chums returned to the 
drawing-room. Flora could not remain quiet 
five minutes unless she had some one to flirt 
with, and Bertrand, somehow, did not seem to 
be in the humor for that diversion. They 
roamed from one end of the room to the other, 
just as they might have done in the _parZor of 
any “ Continental” that they had happened to 
stop at on their travels, turning over the pictures 
in the albums, rummaging among the prints in 
the portfolios. The piano received a visit from 
them in its turn ; the girl played a fragment of 
a waltz, Bertrand, the air of an old French ro- 
manza, and he rendered the simple and touching 
melody with so much feeling that Miss Kinsley 
exclaimed : “ Why, you are a great musician !'’ 

“No,” he replied; “only a great worshiper of 


music. 


FONTLUCE. 


161 


From that time the conversation was exclu- 
sively on melodies, operas, and sonatas. They 
dug down to the very bottom of a closet that was 
filled with operatic scores and pieces of all kinds. 
Flora’s singing was like her billiards, that is to 
say, she showed more venturesomeness than true 
science, but for all that she commenced a couple 
of dozen airs within twenty minutes without fin- 
ishing any one of them, perseverance in her un- 
dertakings not being among her virtues. 

The closet was nearly empty and its contents 
lay upon the carpet, forming a heap of no small 
dimensions, when some manuscript pages of very 
unpromising aspect caught Bertrand’s eye by the 
following dedication in 'ink that had grown yel- 
low through the lapse of years : To Mdlle. Ma- 
rie Labrousse, my pupil, this melody, com- 
posed at her request, is respectfully dedicated. 
“ Oh ! oh !” exclaimed the young man, “ here’s a 
discovery. My mother never told me that she 
had composers who wrote for her. Let us see 
how it is signed : ‘Perantoni’ — an Italian name. 
The pdbr devil must have failed to make a go 
of it; he is unknown to fame.” 

Flora Kinsley cast a glance at the marquise 
as she sat talking with Mrs. Sad well at the other 
end of the salon, and made this remark in an 
undertone : 

“Your mother, to judge by what remains of 


162 


FONTLUCE. 


her beauty, should have had not only musicians 
to celebrate her, but painters and sculptors as 
well. Let us see this unpublished work; it is 
just suited for my voice.” 

With these words the young lady struck the 
chords of a brief introduction which, however, 
displayed much character, and commenced the 
air, written to these words of De Musset: 

“ Still, should I tell you that I love you.” 

She had no inclination this time to break off 
the passionate, dreamy song that had all the ten- 
derness and delicacy of the lines themselves, with 
underlying indications of deep feeling held in re- 
straint. It was a perfect masterpiece, which for 
thirty-five years had lain sleeping in the dust. 
The son of her who had been its inspiration list- 
ened enraptured to its exquisite sweetness. He 
was leaning with his elbows upon the piano and 
his vision seemed to have pierced the walls of 
the room and traveled far away, although the 
face that was so near him was sufficiently se- 
ductive to have kept his thoughts from roam- 
ing. 

All at once he heard the sound of panting res- 
piration close at his ear. His mother had left 
the fauteuil where she had been sitting, charmed 
thither by an irresistible attraction; she was lis- 


FONTLUCE. 


163 


tening with all the force of her attention, with 
humid eyes and. features working with emotion, 
her hands pressed tightly together. 

Bertrand was hardly ever more amazed in all 
his life than he was by this sight. Ever since 
he had been old enough to form a judgment 
upon his mother’s character and disposition he 
had been conscious of a twofold impression ex- 
isting and gathering strength within him; on 
the one hand that of respect and esteem for that 
truthfulness that never wavered in its frank 
sincerity, and on the other — and this was often 
cause of bitter regret to him — his inability to 
sympathize with an aridity of feeling that de- 
manded entire obedience and refused to respond 
to any impulse of tenderness. The idea of seeing 
the Marquise de Fontluce moved to tears by a 
melody sung — and sung in such a fashion — by 
an American girl ! He could not have been much 
more astounded had he seen her go down to the 
kitchen to superintend the cooking of the pot- 
au-feu. There was no need for him to say a 
word; his thought was so clearly indexed in 
his eyes that his mother, regaining her self- 
command, said to him: 

“I will tell you some day how it is, my friend, 
that a recollection that amounts to nothing, and 
that has long since escaped the memory and is 
suddenly reawakened, has the power to bring 


164 


FONTLUCE. 


back to US, as vividly as a flash of lightning, 
our youth that is past and gone.’’ 

Flora had been watching the scene with an 
interest that was less personal in its nature. 
The substance of her reflections was: 

“I wonder if I am to be blessed with a senti- 
mental mother-in-law — supposing always that 
Madame de Fontluce is decreed by fate to be my 
mother-in-law?” 

As if in rebuttal of this opinion, which she no 
doubt would have considered highly injurious, 
the marquise, addressing Miss Kinsley, added: 

“It is all your fault, mademoiselle; you gave 
such a delightful rendering of that piece that I 
used to sing when I was of your age ! It seemed 
to me that it was myself seated at the piano, 
young again, with all my life before me. So, 
my child, you must be charitable; do not laugh 
at an old woman, who must seem to you to be 
taking leave of her senses when she speaks of 
your twenty years in the same breath with her 
half-century, and compares your beauty to her 
wrinkled face.” 

Having spoken thus, Marie de Fontluce re- 
turned to her place beside Flora’s aunt, who had 
paid no attention to what was going on; for, if 
the truth must be told, she was inclined to som- 
nolency after meals, unless she had some one to 
keep her awake by carrying on a vigorous flir- 


FONTLUCE. 


165 


tation with her, so true is it that the same cause 
may produce different effects, according to the 
difference in age. Now was the time for the 
young marquis to turn his mother’s little speech 
to practical account and use her peroration for 
his own personal ends, but he did nothing of the 
kind, and my regard for veracity compels me to 
say that it was not so much timidity as it was 
absent-mindedness that kept his mouth shut. 

The opportune appearance of the servants with 
the tea equipage brought to a close this situa- 
tion that was beginning to drag a little, and 
when they had partaken of the fragrant beverage 
the mistress of the house rang for bed-candles. 
She had sufficient experience in the great comedy 
of society to see that the lover had failed to put 
the due amount of fire into this first act, and the 
wisest thing for her to do was to ring down the 
curtain and cut it short. 


II. 

This was the reason why young Bertrand had 
failed to infuse sufficient fire into his role, and 
why, particularly, he had missed his entree a 
few hours before. 


166 


FONTLUCE. 


His story of the overturned carriage was a 
good deal like the confession of the robber, who 
owned up to having been guilty of throwing his 
comrade’s cap over the precipice. Fra Diavolo 
failed to say anything about the head that ac- 
companied the cap, after he and his brother- 
robber had had a little misunderstanding. Even 
thus the marquis had passed, too cavalierly a 
certain young lady whom he had found in the 
vicinity of the carriage in a position of the 
greatest difficulty. The omission of some slight 
circumstance may serve to impress a story with 
an entirely different character. In a few words, 
this is how the event occurred : 

When Fontluce left the chateau, if he was not 
very enthusiastic over his task, he was at least 
firmly resolved to go and meet the fair Ameri- 
cans upon the road, as he had promised he would 
do ; for, if he at times failed to do what his mother 
wanted him to do, he never gave a promise with- 
out the firm intention of faithfully fulfilling it. 
So he rode off, mentally arranging matters so 
that he should be at the place where he intended 
that the meeting should take place at the right 
moment. The day was extremely warm. He 
allowed his horse to choose his own gait in the 
leafy alley where the trees met overhead and 
shut out the sunlight, and it was delicious there. 
He idly reflected how much pleasanter it was to 


FONTLUCE. 


1G7 


be inhaling the cool, aromatic odors of the forest 
than to be swallowing the dust of the highroad 
in the glaring sunshine. Pursuing his reflec- 
tions further, he called to mind some twenty 
men of his acquaintance, and a somewhat larger 
number of women, all of whom, either in public 
or in private, were cursing the fate that had led 
them to marry, while on the other hand he had 
never seen any one tear his hair because he had 
taken the other course. In order to stiffen up 
his courage he said to himself: 

“Flora Kinsley has the name of being the 
prettiest of all the American girls in Paris, and 
there are not above two or three bags of dollars 
offering in the matrimonial market that are 
heavier than hers. She is a little fast, but all 
her countrywomen are that way at her age, and 
the first child cures them of that defect — and 
that is certainly a remedy that has nothing un- 
pleasant about it, especially for the doctor.” 

In spite of all his reasoning, however, it was 
with a feeling of regret that he saw himself ap- 
proaching the end of the forest, marked by a 
bright spot at the end of his alley that kept ^ 
growing larger and larger, although he suffered 
Lion to jog along at the pace of a market-gar- 
dener’s goat dragging a load of cabbages to the 
Halles. This ride, which he was probably tak- 
ing for the two hundredth time, all at once as- 


168 


FONTLUCE. 


sumed a character of gravity, almost of solem- 
nity, and he felt that he was destined never to 
return from it. 

ISTo, never again, as everything seemed to in- 
dicate, would the Bertrand de Fontluce of the 
present, free, untrammeled, master of his future, 
independent of every one’s caprice but his own, 
never again would that man mark the turf of 
the forest with the imprint of his horse’s hoofs. 
The thought inspired him with a sort of self- 
commiseration that was not devoid of melan- 
choly. A little more and he would have said to 
Lion, imitating Homer’s horsemen who used to 
talk to their steeds v/hen they had no one better 
to converse with : 

“It will not be long before I, too, even I, shall 
have a bit in my mouth, a bit of gold, placed 
there by the pretty hands of Flora, the Yankee 
maiden, whose father, like Phoebus Apollo, used 
to give light to the world — with his petroleum.” 

Just at that moment the nymphs who inhab- 
ited those woods were near enough to behold an 
extremely unromantic spectacle, to wit, a young 
man losing his seat by the shying of his horse. 
Two cries of terror, emanating from behind 
a bush, showed that the nymphs are not 
bad- hearted, notwithstanding their reputation. 
Luckily Bertrand’s trouble did not extend be- 
yond having to regain his seat in the saddle. 


FONTLUCE. 


169 


which he accomplished as gracefully as might 
be. Then he made a survey of the road and 
found that he was at the intersection of a path- 
way where two women had popped up suddenly, 
just as if they had come up through a trap-door 
in the stage; hence Lion’s surprise, which he 
had manifested a little too energetically. The 
younger of the two, who was standing, was at- 
tired in a white dress, and that had doubtless 
been the cause of all the trouble, although there 
was nothing loud or eccentric about it. The 
second of the strangers, who was much older 
than the other, remained seated, or rather reclin- 
ing, in a, wheeled-chair that was tilted partially 
over on its side. The wheel of the vehicle, lying 
beside it on the grass, showed the nature of the 
accident that had brought the ladies’ excursion 
to an end in that unfrequented spot. The Mar- 
quis de Fontluce took in the situation at a 
glance. As he was by nature essentially a man 
of action, he dismounted, tied his horse to a 
limb and, hat in hand, advanced toward the two 
ladies, who were scarcely recovered from their 
charitable fright. 

“If I mistake not,” he said, with a respectful 
bow, “I am come just in time to effect a sal- 
vage. In the first place, let us see what was 
the cause of the wreck.” 

He kneeled upon the grass, examined the axle 


170 


FONTLUCE. 


like one who knew what he was about, and ris- 
ing almost immediately, said: 

“It is just as I thought; a nut has come un- 
screwed. It can’t be far away ; no doubt we shall 
find it by following the wheel-tracks backward.” 

“Monsieur,” said the lady with the white 
hair, “I beg that you will not put yourself out 
for my sake. My daughter will go and get as- 
sistance from our house, which is just at the 
edge of the forest, and which we could see from 
here were it not for the trees. I am very com- 
fortably situated here, as you may see, while 
you—” 

Bertrand, who had not once taken his eyes 
off the young lady, protested very energetically 
against the supposition that there couy possibly 
be any business of greater importance to him at 
that time than to look for a small piece of metal 
among the grass. It was lucky for him that 
Flora Kinsley was not within earshot ! 

“1 busy, madame! It is very evident that I 
have not the good fortune to be known to you. 
Of all the idle I am the idlest, and am only too 
glad that chance has afforded me an opportunity 
of making myself useful once in my life. Be- 
sides, it will take but a moment.” 

He was already making off in the direction 
whence they had come, one eye on the indistinct, 
faintly marked wheel-tracks and the other on the 


FONTLUCE. 


171 


anonymous young lady, in the fond hope that 
she would not allow him to pursue the search for 
the nut alone. In fact, he did hear the old lady 
say to her daughter, almost in a whisper, a few 
words of which he distinguished only the first : 

Suzanne.” 

“ Monsieur,” said Mdlle. Suzanne, as she came 
up with him, without any sign of shyness or em- 
barrassment, “ what are we to do in case we do 
not find the — the little implement?” 

“ Oh ! never fear, mademoiselle. I will replace 
the ‘little implement’ temporarily with my pen- 
knife and a bit of wood. I am pretty good at 
repairing accidents of that kind. Ketween you 
and me you ventured into a road that is hardly 
fit for wheels, and you must have had a pretty 
fatiguing task of it.” 

“It was, a little; but the coolness of this 
shaded path was very seductive to mother and 
me, to say nothing of the attraction of the un- 
known, for we had never been so far into the 
forest as this. I see that we must content our- 
selves to keep to the beaten roads in future, tire- 
some as they are.” 

“ Perhaps not. A shovel or two to level down 
the rough spots and a few cart-loads of fine sand 
will make a nice alley for you. I will see that 
it is done, to-morrow, and then you won’t have 
to fear a similar annoyance in the future.” 


172 


FONTLUCE. 


“You are Monsieur de Fontluce, I seeT’ the 
girl inquired, very unaffectedly. 

“ At your service, mademoiselle, and I beg that 
you will overlook the roughness of my roads.” 

Suzanne made no reply, considering that her 
interlocutor was a little too prodigal with his 
landlordly politeness. She was walking beside 
him, her tall form slightly bent, minutely scru- 
tinizing every little tuft of grass; for she was be- 
ginning to feel that it was time that the wheeled- 
chair was restored to its condition of usefuhiess 
and the adventure brought to a conclusion. In 
addition to this she v/as beginning to understand 
that no great reliance was to be placed on her 
companion’s eyes, for they seemed to be occupied 
with something quite other than the nut. 

To be entirely candid about the matter, in 
fact, that hypocrite of a Bertrand would have 
passed a cart-wheel without seeing it. He had 
suddenly become afflicted with strabismus be- 
neath the wide brim of his soft hat, and while 
he was pretending to look downward at his own 
feet it was those of his neighbor that he was con- 
templating, with an attention, moreover, that 
carried with it a most excellent excuse, for the 
stout shoes that encased them did not detract in 
the slightest from their delicate perfection of 
form. Becoming more and more oblivious of 
what he was about Fontluce allowed his eyes 


FONTLUCE. 


173 


to wander upward to the hand that was holding 
back the folds of the light dress. The hand was 
worthy companion of the foot, which is a thing 
that is not often seen. They both spoke so elo- 
quently fqr themselves — ^in abridgment — that the 
marquis ran over in his mind the names of all 
the aristocracy of the country, to see who might 
be this young lady who went pushing wheeled- 
chairs about the forest, but he cudgeled his 
memory in vain. 

Then he reflected that the riddle would solve 
itself of necessity if only he might be compelled 
by circumstances to see the feeble old lady to 
her door. What was requisite for that was that 
the nut should remain unfound. Oh, joy! at 
that very moment he caught sight of it, and, 
as was but right, covered it with his boot and 
pressed it into the earth with all his strength. 
Now he was quite certain that they would need 
him to help them out of their scrape. As a mat- 
ter of course he kept on hunting with might and 
main, chatting meanwhile with Suzanne, who 
listened to him with a mingled air of pleasure 
and vexation, her instinct telling her that this 
nice young man was cherishing some perfidious 
project. She kept turning about, every now and 
then, to fortify her courage by assuring herself 
that her mother was there still, though she 
might have known that the good lady could 


174 


FONTLUCE. 


not have got away unassisted unless the Lord 
worked a miracle in her favor. They could hear 
the appealing whinnying of Lion, for whom the 
time was passing more slowly than for his mas- 
ter. The poor beast had no idea that he still 
had an hour of waiting before him. 

Suzanne (could it be that she v/as beginning 
to suspect her companion’s good faith?) declared 
that she would pursue the search no further, 
notwithstanding the delusive encouragement of 
the traitor who was getting so much enjoyment 
out of the situation. The two skirmishers fell 
back upon the main body of the army, showing 
from a distance by their gestures that they were 
returning empty-handed. 

Bertrand now had an opportunity of display- 
ing his handiness; he had not boasted of it in- 
ordinately. In a few minutes the vehicle was 
repaired — provisionally — without the old lady 
having been obliged to alight from it. While 
engaged in his task, with the assistance of many 
a twig and bit of string, the impromptu wheel- 
wright heard upon the adjacent highroad a 
sound of wheels which he recognized. It was 
the carriage bearing the fair American and her 
fortunes, their fortunes, perhaps, although from 
the way things were going the publication of the 
bans did not seem imminent. 

“Good!” thought the young man. “This 


FONTLUCE. 


175 


evening I will devote myself to Flora; for the 
moment I am all Suzanne’s. Priino^ that per- 
son is my fellow-countrywoman; secundo, she 
is mighty pretty!” 

He announced that the repairs were completed 
and that they could make a start. 

“Do you think,” said the invalid, with a 
pleasant smile, “that I can count on my post- 
chaise to carry me to my destination without 
breaking down?” 

The marquis shook his head with a dubious 
air. He dared not take it upon himself to vouch 
for it. A wooden pin, even when taken from 
the sturdiest oak of the forest, was not as strong 
as a screw of brass. He could guarantee noth- 
ing, except the carefulness with which he had 
done his work. All depended on the inequalities 
of the road. 

“Upon due consideration of all the circum- 
stances,” he concluded, “I should not consider 
it right to leave you, madame, until I have seen 
you to a place of safety. I hold myself respon- 
sible for all that happens in these woods; made- 
moiselle your daughter knows why.” 

“Dear mamma,” said Suzanne, “let me pres- 
ent to you the Marquis de Fontluce, in whose 
woods we have been trespassing and whose ride 
we have brought to an unhappy conclusion.” 

The young man gave utterance to fresh remon- 


17G 


FONTLUCE. 


strances. One would have thought, to hear 
him, that his sole object in coming out on horse- 
back that day had been to afford assistance to 
his unknown protegees. Already, impelled by 
his strong hand, the chair was rolling along with 
a gentle trembling. 

“But, sir,” said the lady of the gray hair, 
“you can’t be going to leave your horse alone 
here in the midst of the forest. Suppose some 
poacher should come along and steal him.?” 

Bertrand only laughed at the idea, and while 
he pushed the carriage along and chatted with 
the mother, he examined "vey much at his lei- 
sure the handsome young creature who was walk- 
ing in front of them, a little toward the side of 
the road, turning almost momently with a sup- 
ple, graceful movement to take part in the con- 
versation and cast a smile to the poor invalid. 

There are essentially but three types of beauty. 

Greek art, ever infallible when it is a ques- 
tion of feminine gracefulness, conceived the idea 
of personifying them in three goddesses, whom 
it even ventured to compare with one another in 
the most romantic of legends: Juno, Minerva 
and Venus. Mdlle. Suzanne— we must remain 
satisfied with her Christian name for the present 
— on account of the slenderness of her nineteen 
years, could not aspire to the Junonian majesty, 
and her hair was too black, there was too much 


FONTLUCE. 


177 


modesty in her smile, and her form was too slen- 
derly molded to be Venus. Still, as if to embar- 
rass Paris when the time came, she had stolen 
from the Mother of the Loves her eyes of blue 
and her complexion of lilies and roses. 

That is a very roundabout way of saying that 
she was a brunette with blue eyes, tall and slim, 
with the rosy cheeks of a blonde; but the round- 
about way is a good way when it prolongs our 
pleasures, and among the pleasures that beauty 
affords to the rest of the world, that of admiring 
and describing it is not the least noteworthy. 
As to her moral nature, this cross between 
Venus and Minerva appeared less eclectic. She 
seemed as sedate as a body can be at her age 
and as little of a coquette as a woman could 
well be with her face. 

And yet, there was nothing morose apparent 
in this gravity, but only the reflection — tinged 
with melancholy by sorrow and a life of loneli- 
ness — of a noble and courageous soul, capable of 
endurance in adversity and of maintaining its 
uprightness under fortune’s smiles. If the smile 
settled a little too infrequently on those flnely 
cut and resolute lips, moreover, one almost al- 
ways had an instinctive feeling that it was not 
far away. At the slightest cheerful word com- 
ing from her mother, Suzanne’s face would be- 
come radiant; the remainder of her time was 


1?8 


FONTLUCE. 


given to efforts to divert the thoughts of the in- 
valid from her hopeless suffering. Her toilet 
showed that she was poor, but very much of a 
woman in her instinct for the becoming. To 
sum it all up in a few words, she had that kind 
of beauty that is an economy, because it sets off 
the toilet. 

It is no such easy matter to simultaneously 
keep a lookout for the rough places in the road 
and watch admiringly the undulating lines of a 
fair stranger who is walking in front cf you, a 
little to your left. Bertrand exhibited himself 
in the light of a very agreeable man, but as a 
coachman he was more or less a failure. If there 
was a dried-up puddle, or a mole-hill, or a tree- 
branch in the way, he was sure to drive the 
chair over it ; but, fortunately, his want of at- 
tention to the obstacles in his path was offset 
by the unimaginable dilatoriness of his progress. 
He would stop at frequent intervals to take a 
look at his handicraft and see how it was hold- 
ing out. In this way the equipage consumed 
only three quarters of an hour in traversing a 
distance of about half a mile, when they came 
to a little house that stood beside a little road 
which must have led from nowhere to nowhere, 
so free was it from all traces of travel. 

“Here we are,” said the old lady, “and I can 
hardly tell which feeling predominates in me: 


FONTLUCE. 


179 


pleasure at being at the end of my adventure, or 
regret at parting with such an agreeable and 
obliging companion. I thank you, sir. I only 
wish that I could feel certain that you will find 
your horse where you left him.” 

Bertrand, unmindful of the fact that he was 
likely to have his hands pretty full in carrying 
out the programme of the morrow, made answer: 

“With your permission, madame, we will 
come over to-morrow and reassure you, one of 
us carrying the other on his back.” 

Mdlle. Suzanne appeared to be a little embar- 
rassed. She looked first at the humble cottage 
and then at her mother, in a way that the young 
man understood and that evidently meant : 

“A sorry place, that, in which to receive the 
chatelain of Fontluce!” 

A strapping servant-girl, one of those female 
Hercules that are in demand as nurses for par- 
alytics, came to the door of a shed that adjoined 
the house on its gable end. It was plain that 
the premises possessed no other out-buildings 
than the slied, even as they possessed no other 
servant than the wench. 

“N’othing has happened to these ladies?” the 
latter asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “I 
was beginning to feel worried about them.” 

She came forward to the side of the vehicle, 


180 


FONTLUCE. 


I 


making ready, as could bo seen, to take her old 
mistress in her strong arms, but a sign prevented 
her; the sick woman, with a last remnant of 
feminine coquetry, was ashamed to display her 
infirmity in public. Bertrand saw that his 
farther presence would be unwelcome, so he 
made his bow and retired. He re-entered the 
forest by the path along which they had just 
come, and the first thing that he did was to go 
straight to the nut, which he picked up and put 
in his pocket. Hext he turned his steps toward 
his horse, who had also had the good luck to fall 
in with a compassionate soul. A gamekeeper 
was tranquilly driving the flies away with a 
bunch of fern-leaves, addressing the animal at 
the same time with those polite phrases which 
the operation always seems to demand. As he 
saw Fontluce coming up, the man removed his 
blue cloth cap with one hand and with the other 
took his pipe from between his lips. 

“I thought that Monsieur le*Marquis couldn’t 
be far away, and as the flies bite sharp, I stopped 
on my round to soothe Lion a bit, for he was be- 
ginning to dance like a fire-cracker. If it hadn’t 
been for me, Monsieur le Marquis wouldn’t have 
found his horse in the department of the Seine 
and Marne.” 

Bertrand replied: “I got off to look for — for 
something that was lost.” 


FOXTLUCE. 


181 


“Did Monsieur le Marquis find what he was 
looking for?” 

“I found it and I did not find it,” said Ber- 
trand. And while the keeper was fruitlessly 
trying to fathom the meaning of this rather 
enigmatical expression, his master added: “As I 
was passing a lonely little house at the border of 
the forest just now, I saw two ladies who must 
be newcomers here. Do you know their names?” 

The individual upon whose shoulders rested 
the responsibility of protecting the interests of the 
Fontluce property looked downward out of the 
corner of his eye with a queer expression at two 
faint wheel-tracks that were still visible upon 
the turf of the pathway; but like a servant who 
knew his business he kept his thoughts to him- 
self and confined his answer to the question that 
was addressed to him. 

“ The parties that Monsieur le Marquis ha^ 
just — just seen came here in the month of April 
last. The cottage that they have hired for them- 
selves is called the Chaumiere des Brettes. I 
have heard say that they came from Paris, and 
that they have lost all their money. They are 
mother and daughter, and their name is De 
Frezolles. I don’t believe that they would come 
and live at the Brettes if they had it to do over 
again, but monsieur makes a clear gain by it of 
two hundred francs a year at the very least.” 


182 


FONTLUCE. 


It was the young man’s turn to fail to under- 
stand. He asked: 

“I should like to know how that is, if you 
please, for the Brettes does not form part of the 
domain.” 

“No, Monsieur le Marquis, but before those 
ladies came we had a peasant in there who mado 
us pay its weight in gold for every head of let- 
tuce gnawed by the rabbits and every ear of 
wheat nibbled by the fawns. He is dead, thank 
the Lord ! and now that the Parisians have suc- 
ceeded him the steward has no more claims to 
settle. The poor ladies don’t know what the lav/ 
is; they eat what the game leaves for them, and 
it never enters their heads to make things even 
by setting snares for it, which is as it should be. 
So you see that there is that much clear profit. 
The demoiselle says that she don’t care so very 
much about the vegetables, but that she is sorr^ 
on account of her flowers. They must be city 
folks, to have such notions as that !” 

“That is what you think, eh, Guignard?” re- 
marked the young man. “Weil, the ‘demoi- 
selle ’ shall pick her flowers and the mother shall 
eat her vegetables, and you can depend on what 
I tell you. So the He Frezolles ladies have no 
one to give them a word of advice and teach 
them how to deal with the forest-owners?” 

“ Oh ! Monsieur le Marquis knows that the 


FONTLUCE. 


183 


peasants stick by one another, but the ladies from 
Paris — ^that is a horse of another color. And 
then the ladies are proud ; they probably have 
no relatives. No one has ever seen a visitor at 
their house.” 

“ Seven o’clock ! ” suddenly exclaimed Pontluce, 
as he pulled out his watch. “Come, boy, we 
must gallop for it !” 

Lion might gallop as hard as he would ; how- 
ever, it was of no use. His rider was late, as 
we have seen. 

Such is the plain, unvarnished tale of the 
accident that subjected the young man to the 
imputation of unpunctuality on a certain even- 
ing when he had every reason in the world for 
being punctual. 


III. 

If this were nothing more than a niere novel 
concocted for the delectation of the reader, I 
should not have failed to delineate my hero 
prancing along the forest glades with head 
bowed upon his breast, the peace of his heart 
destroyed by a new sensation and an image that 
was destined to become the idol of his life pres- 
ent before his eyes, fully determined not to honor 


184 


FONTLUCE. 


seductive Miss Kinsley by so much as a look. 
As, however, it is a history of which the only 
merit lies in its plain, unadorned veracity, I feel 
obliged to confess that the sole idea that Bertrand 
had in his head was : 

“ What kind of a reception am I going to meet 
with presently? And what yarn shall I invent 
to avoid a scolding from my mother?” 

The marquise, indeed, did not consider that 
her son’s age (he was then in his twenty-eighth 
year) was sufficient reason why she should abdi- 
cate the authority that she had exercised as 
regent for so long a time. There were several 
causes that contributed to preserve this author- 
ity almost undiminished: the young man’s dis- 
position, in the first place, that was averse to 
wrangling and disputes; then the dowager’s 
cool, indomitable energy ; and, finally, what was 
a most important circumstance to be considered, 
that the entire fortune of the family was in her 
hands and that her son had not the handling of 
a louis of it. 

!So the horseman, as he flew with the swift- 
ness of an arrow through the sleeping shadows 
of the deep forest, was dreaming less than one 
might suppose of the brown beauty whom he 
was leaving, or the blond beauty whom he was 
soon to see and whose conquest he was to en- 
deavor to make. He was simply prosaically 


FONTLUCE. 


185 


trying to invent an excuse that should be suffi- 
ciently specious to save him from a scene, and 
to tell the truth, the marquise’s scenes were of 
such a kind that it was worth one’s while to 
make an extra effort to avoid them. When he 
had settled on the excuse, or the adaptation of 
the truth, rather, upon which he relied to help 
him out of his difficulty — and which did help 
him, as we have seen — this great school-boy of 
twenty-eight felt easier in his mind. Then he 
began to wonder what was going to be the end 
of the adventure (I mean the American adven- 
ture), and if he was fated to fall in love with 
Miss Kinsley; for as for marrying her for her 
money alone, he never admitted to himself the 
possibility of such a thing. 

There was one consideration, however, that 
never occurred to the honest fellow: under ex- 
isting circumstances he v/as like an amateur of 
painting who should visit the museum of the 
Louvre before dropping in to look at a collection 
of pictures of the modern school. Bertrand was 
not in love with Suzanne de Frezolles when he 
parted from her; but, without being aware of it 
himself, he was in the most unfavorable state of 
mind imaginable for becoming the lover of the 
other girl, and, indeed, when the evening was 
over and he found himself alone in the solitude 
of his apartment, he was surprised that he had 


186 


FONTLUCE. 


been so entirely unmov^ed, that he had not felt 
the least thrill at his heart or the slightest ac- 
celeration of his pulse in the presence of this ex- 
tremely pretty, wondrously attired young lady, 
who for some hours had been exhibiting herself 
before him in all the dazzling splendor of her 
eyes, her teeth, her smile, of her golden locks, 
and the fire-cracker-like vivacity of her gestures. 
All this exotic magnificence had interested him, 
but had failed to make more than a passing im- 
pression. He had observed her as one may ad- 
mire a country that offers many curious things 
to the traveler, unlike anything seen before, but 
where one has no desire to live, and still less to 
die. As sleep descended to close his weary eye- 
lids, it found him wrestling with this mental 
problem : 

“What is the programme for to-morrow? In 
the morning I am to ride on horseback with Miss 
Kinsley. After that, breakfast. In the after- 
noon I have to take her to drive with her aunt, 
and then we have a few of the neighbors to dine 
with us — no unmarried men, be it understood. 
And yet, I must find a way of running over to 
the Brettes; I even wish tocarr}^ a bouquet with 
me, without my mother knowing it, of course, 
and the gardener never picks a flower unless she 
gives him orders.” 

It happened, most fortunately, that Mrs. Sad- 


FONTLUCE. 


1B7 


well and her niece had the commendable habit 
of taking an afternoon nap. About half-past 
one o’clock, beneath a sun whose rays scorched 
like fire, Bertrand managed to slip out on horse- 
back through the stable gate- way, carrying a 
bunch of roses fit to present to a queen. He 
struck across lots to reach the forest in order not 
to have to pass under his mother’s batteries, who 
had never in her whole lifetime taken an hour’s 
siesta, and whose eyes and ears seemed to have 
gained what her legs had lost in activity. 

At that same moment the De Frezolles ladies 
were conversing together in what they styled 
their drawing-room, pursuing meantime the oc- 
cupation of darning their table-cloths. 

“I would like to know,” said the invalid, lay- 
ing down her work, “if he is the son of one of 
my dancing partners of other days whom we 
used to call ‘dark Fontluce, ’on account of the 
care and unhappiness that were never absent 
from his face. He was said to be poor, and 
that, alas! is no assistance toward maintaining 
an unvarying cheerfulness of demeanor. If he 
is the Fontluce that I have in mind, however, 
he has got over that since those days — so far as 
the poverty is concerned, at least — by marrying 
the daughter of a banker, or something of that 
sort, who regilded his escutcheon for him. She 
was very handsome, it seems, and sang delight 


188 


FONTLUCE. 


fally, but that did not prevent her making her 
husband as wretched as a man can be by her 
jealousy and her overbearing ways. They say 
that she never let him have more than a louis at 
a time for pocket-money, and even then he must 
'not have forfeited her good graces by daring to 
set up his will against hers, or so much as look 
at another woman. You see that money does 
not suffice to purchase happiness in this world.” 

“No, dear mamma, it does not suffice,” said 
Suzanne with a sigh, that she modified almost 
immediately to a smile as she looked at her 
mother. 

Mme. de Frezolles continued, happy to have a 
new subject to converse about : 

“I never made the acquaintance of the terrible 
marquise. I married at the same time that she 
did — not for money — and garrison life made me 
a provincial up to the day when I returned to 
Paris — alone with you, my darling child. And 
here we are, more countrified than ever. ’ ’ 

“Oh! as for that, mamma, it is a pleasure to 
be here, and the doctor who prescribed country 
air for you deserves to be called a great man. 
You are getting better, and I am the happiest 
girl in the world.” 

“Will you hold your tongue! One should 
never say, even in ever so faint a whisper, that 
he is well and happy; misfortune has such sharp 


FONTLUCE. 


189 


ears! You will certainly have some piece of bad 
luck to lament over shortly.” 

“Bad luck? Why, I am overrun with it as 
it is. In the first place, there is your carriage 
broken down, consequently there is no excursion 
to the forest for us to-day. In the next place, 
Claudine has taken up arms against me and 
there is open war between us. Do you know 
what she v/anted to do, the horrid thing? Bor- 
row a musket and, under the pretense of being a 
gendarme’s widow, sit up and watch at night 
and shoot the rabbits who invite themselves to 
sup with us. The dear little things! I often 
watch them from my bedroom window, as they 
scamper about in the moonlight or sit down on 
their haunches and rub their muzzles with their 
paws and scratch their great ears, that cast 
shadows on the ground a mile long. The sight 
is worth a few carrots. Claudine don’t think 
so, however; she declares that she will never 
touch a spade again, unless she is allowed to de- 
fend the product of her industry with powder 
and shot. And you know what Claudine is, 
don’t you? When it comes to regular up and 
down tyranny she can give points to the auto- 
cratic marquise that you were speaking of awhile 
ago.” 

Just as Suzanne completed the utterance of 
these words, the noise of a horseshoe striking 


190 


FONTLUCE. 


against a stone in the unfrequented road reached 
the two women’s ears. 

“Mamma, it is he!” exclaimed Mdlle. de 
Frezolles, using the opening between the bowed 
shutters for purposes of observation. “ Gra- 
cious! what a state his horse is in! He is white 
with foam. Good! there is Claudine holding 
his stirrup for him while he dismounts. He is 
laughing; there they are talking together.” 

“Bravo, madame!” Bertrand was saying to 
his groom in petticoats. “Unless I am greatly 
mistaken you have been there before. If we 
were in the land of the Amazons I should say 
that you were a corporal in the regiment of 
Thalestris.” 

“No, sir,” replied Claudine with masculine 
directness, “it was Plantegenet, my deceased, 
who was corporal, at Brie. You will find the 
ladies at the first door to the left as you enter 
the passage. Monsieur need have no anxiety 
about his horse; I am going to walk him about 
in the sunlight to cool him off. Poor beast ! If 
ever Plantegenet had brought his mount back 
to me in such a state — ” 

She had already crossed Lion’s stirrups over 
the saddle and, armed with a branch broken 
from a willow- tree to drive away the flies, was 
commencing to give the animal his hygienic ex- 
ercise, of which he manifestly stood in need, for 


FONTLUCE. 


191 


the water was running down his flanks and 
dropping on the ground. 

Suzanne, observing that Fontluce was unde- 
cided what to do, advanced to his succor by com- 
ing out upon the doorstep. With more cheer- 
fulness, perhaps, than she really felt, she said : 

“I see that the rider is receiving a great deal 
less attention than his steed.” 

“Why, that is as it should be, mademoiselle; 
besides, the rider has nothing to complain of, 
since you are so kind as to show your care for 
him.” 

“Small house, little care. My mother will 
give you a scolding, sir, for having chosen the 
hottest hour of the day for your visit to her.” 

“May the devil fly away with me if it was I 
who selected it!” thought the young man as he 
followed Suzanne. “When a fellow has a couple 
of American women in his house he is no longer 
master to say what he will do, or when he will 
do it.” 

Mme. de Frezolles was seated in a room of 
passable size that had been transmuted into a 
drawing-room by favor of some much worn 
rugs stretched over the stone flagging, and some 
rickety furniture that had once been elegant but 
had seen its best days, and that contrasted pain- 
fully with the walls painted in oil by a knight 
of the brush of the country. By one of the two 


192 


FONTLUCE. 


windows, the one that had an outlook to the 
north, the daylight entered through muslin cur- 
tains of snowy whiteness. On the table were a 
photographic album, four or five books of seri- 
ous aspect, and a pile of folded linen ; hanging 
from the walls, some family portraits, sacred 
relics that are never sold, even when they are 
the work of famous artists, as was the case here ; 
finally, upon the narrow mantelpiece of polished 
marble, one of those frightful ornaments with 
which the guest-chambers in modest country 
houses are obliged to content themselves, willy- 
nilly. 

It caused Bertrand de Fontluce a pang to see 
nothing that spoke of youth and pleasure in this 
room where a handsome girl of twenty had to 
spend her days. So bare was it that there was 
not even a vase in which to place the roses that 
he had brought with him for Mine, de Frezolles. 
From the look of things, bouquets were scarce 
articles in that abode. 

“It is years,” said the old lady, “since I have 
seen such flowers as these. You are spoiling me 
too much, monsieur.” 

“I am doing only an act of common justice,” 
replied Bertrand. “I have heard fine stories 
about my deer and rabbits ! I know that they 
have been treating your garden as if it was theirs 
by right of conquest, and you have not uttered 


FONTLUCE. 


193 


the first word of complaint to my keepers. Your 
predecessors displayed less delicacy in the mat- 
ter; they fairly inundated me with stamped 
paper. But never mind! In a couple of days, 
when I am free from — from a little matter that 
I have on my hands just now, I will see if I 
cannot give a little more attention to my duties 
as a proprietor. In the meantime I have a more 
immediate act of restitution to perform.” 

He took from his pocket the famous nut and 
laid it on the table. 

“Just imagine,” said he; “I found it after I 
had left you yesterday without looking for it. 
That is always the way. I found my horse, too, 
that you were so good as to be anxious about. As 
you see, nothing is ever lost in my woods, and I 
hope that you will favor them with your pres- 
ence more and more.” 

He talked unceasingly, like a prisoner just re- 
leased from confinement, who wants to make up 
for lost time. He felt very happy, without hav- 
ing any special reason for his gladness, but the 
satisfaction that he was experiencing was plainly 
legible upon his countenance. The De Frezolles 
ladies, for their part, regarded with interest this 
spectacle that one of them had almost forgotten 
and the other had never known : a human being 
to all appearances free from care and discontent. 
It was a pleasure to them to see him shed about 


194 


FOJ^TLUCE. 


him the sunshine of his happiness and youthful 
gayety. The heroism of this feeling, that is al- 
most repugnant to nature, can only be appreciated 
by those hearts that protracted suffering has lac- 
erated but not hardened, for the wretched are 
more readily consoled by other’s tears than by 
their smiles. 

Still, the remedy did not act with equal po- 
tency upon the two ladies, and if Bertrand had 
closed his eyes (a thing which he had not the 
slightest inclination to do) he would have mis- 
taken their ages in listening to their talk and 
confounded the older with the younger. Besides, 
the introversion is one that is of frequent occur- 
rence in these days; our fin de siecle has re- 
versed the position of the generations. The 
grandmother adheres still to her light chat on 
frivolous subjects, the daughter argues abstract 
questions, while the little one, going on eighteen, 
has the shelves of her mind stocked with pessim- 
ism. It is like listening to a piano that has its 
bass notes at the right of the keyboard. Look 
out for discords ! 

Suzanne was too clear-sighted not to see that 
this marquis that had descended to them from 
cloudland was possessed of very distinguished 
manners, a reflective mind under the mask of 
his easy good-nature, and, what is still more 
rarely met with, feeling. She reflected, how- 


FONTLUCE. 


195 


ever, as she twirled a rose about in her fingers 
(for she had laid her mending to one side) : 

“What good purpose can this eclogue serve? 
For him it is a distraction; doubtless he has 
nothing to occupy him at home. (Nothing to 
occupy him ! And an American with a fortune 
of five millions waiting for a husband !) In a 
week’s time the Brettes will appear to him in its 
true light, as a sad, gloomy place. He will for- 
get us. And what will dear mamma have gained 
by it? An additional regret and a solitude that 
will be the harder to endure.” 

On the other hand, Mme. de Frezolles, who 
seemed to have suddenly thrown off twenty-five 
years of her life, carried on the conversation 
with Fontluce with an animation that her 
daughter had. never seen in her before. She 
called to mind a thousand forgotten recollec- 
tions, to Suzanne’s great surprise, who felt more 
of melancholy than of pride as she became aware 
of the circumstances under which she ought to 
be living. Bertrand, upon comparison of notes, 
was found to be the son of the handsome partner 
of other days, and the mere way that he had of 
unconsciously lowering his voice whenever he 
spoke of his mother was quite enough to show 
that the despot had only exchanged one slave for 
another. 

He, with all sorts of delicate precautions, was 


196 


FONTLUCE. 


constantly returning to the thought that filled 
his mind. Ever since he had met these women, 
one of them so worthy of respect, the other so 
worthy to be loved, and both destitute of all that 
can afford happiness, his only thought had been 
to bring a little sunshine into their life. Al- 
ready the mother, drawn on by natural sympa- 
thies, was beginning to be confidential with him 
in spite of the appealing looks of the daughter, 
who blushed for shame; for she saw that it was 
pity that was moving the heart of this young 
man, whom she regarded with suspicion on ac- 
count of his fortune. She never suspected that 
Bertrand was no richer in his chateau than the}^ 
were in their humble cottage of the Brettes, and 
that he was certainly very much poorer in love 
and companionship. 

The clock struck something that must have 
been three. The young man started, looked at 
his watch, and, rising, said: 

“I had forgotten that time is passing, and 
that — I must be at the house for — a little busi- 
ness. May I venture to come again, madame, 
and have a little chat with you?” 

The permission having been accorded with 
great cordiality, he fled like a trooper who fears 
to be late at roll-call. There was nothing to be 
seen of Lion or Claudine on the dusty road, but 
he presently espied them both under a great elm. 


FONTLUCE. 


197 


of which the trunk was encircled by a bench of 
withered turf. The gendarme’s widow was sit- 
ting, still holding the bridle of the horse, whose 
flanks and shoulders she was gently stroking 
with her branch of willow, humming in an 
undertone, meanwhile, an air that her “ de- 
ceased ” had been used to sing in his moments 
of good- humor. The horse, in a magnetized 
-condition, was holding his head down, as if 
ready to fall asleep, while on the bank of a small 
pool that had been excavated by a former tenant 
to give water to his cow, now conspicuous by 
her absence, two ducks were quite asleep, their 
heads under their wings, enjoying their siesta 
— and they were not American ducks, either. 

The marquis, ever mindful of the usages of 
country politeness, spoke to Claud ine as he took 
possession of his steed. 

“I hope, my good woman, that that does not 
constitute the whole of your poultry-yard?” 

“The foxes can tell you where the rest of them 
are, monsieur. If ever you have to look for a 
house to pass your old age in, I advise you not 
to select the Brettes. I wish that those devilish 
woods — ” 

“Don’t speak evil of them,” the young man 
interrupted with a laugh. “Here is a hundred 
sous piece that came out of them.” 

Claud ine reflected a moment. 


198 


FONTLUCE. 


“Bless my soul!” she said, “I’ll bet that you 
are Monsieur le Marquis!” 

“You have won,” replied Bertrand, already 
in the saddle. “Open your other hand; I’ll pay 
the bet.” 

He started off at a gallop, leaving behind him 
the servant radiant, the mother pleased, and the 
daughter very sad, without her being able to 
assign any reason for it. 


IV. 

The Marquis de Fontluce had returned from 
Melun Station, having put his Americans on 
board the Paris express, with any quantity of 
roses and polite speeches, but without evincing 
any consciousness that Miss Flora’s hand could 
be used for any other purpose than to shake. 
As he alighted from the carriage he heaved a 
little sigh of satisfaction, and looked at his 
watch. 

“There is still an hour before dinner-time,” 
he thought. “Suppose I were to gallop over 
to the Brettes? I should find the mother and 
daughter taking their walk, and I could just say 
good-day to them without dismounting.” 

But he had counted without his host, or to 


FONTLUCE. 


199 


speak more correctly, that which he had fore- 
seen only too clearly came to pass sooner than 
he had expected. His mother’s maid, dread 
Josephine, came to him with her stealthy step 
like a treacherous old cat and informed him that 
he was wanted in his mother’s study. 

As far back as he could remember this usher 
of the black rod had been the bearer to the poor 
fellow of summonses of a nature similar to this. 
In his younger days these simple words of the 
grim servant had been wont to freeze the mar- 
row in the child’s bones, as she recited them 
coldly, with an expression of vague pity in her 
dull, fishy eyes: 

“Monsieur Bertrand, Madame la Marquise 
wants you.” 

In these later days she did not bring much 
more comfort with her, in spite of the deep rev- 
erence with which she accompanied the conse- 
crated formula : 

“Madame la Marquise would like to have a 
word with Monsieur le Marquis.” 

Poor Bertrand! He knew but too well what 
was to be the subject of conversation. He 
counted the steps as he ascended the great stair- 
case, so as to gain a little time. Farewell, the 
gallop through the leafy avenues where coolness 
reigned! Farewell, Mme. de Frezolle’s frank 
and kindly smile! Farewell, the attractive rid- 


200 


FONTLUCE. 


die of Suzanne’s blue eyes, ever vibrating with 
intelligence, ever inscrutable in their sorrow as 
in their joy! 

They were present to his vision, those eyes, as 
he entered his mother’s room, but soon they faded 
and were gene from his memory. The mar- 
quise’s optics, equally handsome in their way, 
perhaps, did not leave him long in doubt as to 
the meaning that lay behind them. She started 
off with the exordium ex abrupto, which made 
Bertrand feel that the session was bound to be a 
stormy one: 

“My friend, for the past forty-eight hours you 
have been making three persons ridiculous. Let 
us speak, in the first place, of the two who are 
almost strangers to you. They had sense enough 
not to be angry, but I confess that I am sur- 
prised at their taking things in such good part, 
for, between you and me, your behavior toward 
them might be characterized as rudeness.” 

“I hope not,” replied Bertrand, “for, of all 
the reproaches that could be brought against me, 
there is none that I should feel more keenly than 
that of being rude to a woman. I must ask you 
to review the situation with me. What has hap- 
pened? Two foreigners, not very well known 
in Paris (this is not said to disparage them), felt 
a desire to become more closely acquainted with 
the society in which you move, that is to say. 


FONTLUCE. 


201 


the best. They slipped a few bank notes into 
your hand for your charities, and your drawing- 
room door flew open to receive them. I blame 
no one for this, at the same time that I regret 
the days when it was the custom for great ladies 
to go down into the street when works of charity 
were to be accomplished, and not bring the street 
upstairs to their salons. The two ladies found 
favor in your eyes — their manners and appear- 
ance were sufficient to account for that — and 
doubtless the information that you gathered con 
cerning them was of a nature to secure your 
confidence.” 

“Why, yes,” the marquise hotly interjected. 
“No one can say a word against them. Were 
it not for that — ” 

“If you please, mother, there is no need of 
defending a cause where there is no prosecution. 
A young girl can have no more battering recom- 
mendation than to be sought for as a daughter- 
in-law by a woman such as you. But that is 
not where the shoe pinches. Before inviting 
these two Americans to come and look at our 
wares, it might have been more prudent to ascer- 
tain whether love was likely to be behind the 
counter. I had scarcely had a chance to see 
that young lady ; I had not spoken to her three 
times in my life.” 

“Well, that is just the reason why I arranged 


202 


FONTLUCE. 


the meeting, so that yoa might have a chance to 
converse with her at your ease.” 

‘‘ Oh ! pardon me. The word meeting has not 
its ordinary meaning when a marriageable young 
lady of her caliber is in question. I suppose that 
Miss Flora has received invitations to twenty 
houses besides ours — and all from equally disin- 
terested motives. She is evidently used to the 
business, and as she is not deficient in intelligence 
and perception of the humorous I am inclined to 
think that she has come to like these villegiatu- 
ras that resemble each other so closely : at din- 
ner, the first evening, plastic preliminaries, 
effects of shoulders on the one side and mus- 
taches on the other, the young man wildly in 
love by dessert time. The evening winds up 
with a continuous but progressive flirtation, 
either in the billiard-room or the dark corners of 
the drawing-room, or else in the open air, under 
the trees of the park, if the weather is propitious. 
The next morning they ride on horseback to- 
gether, tete-a-tete; the young man delivers him- 
self of his declaration — and so things go on up 
to the great scene of passion, an hour or two be- 
fore train time, while the servants are bringing 
down the trunks.” 

Mme. de Fontluce observed her son with a 
surprise that had no admiration in it. When 
she thought that the proper moment had arrived. 


FONTLUCE. 


203 


she brought the conversation back into its pre- 
destined channel with an abrupt jerk : 

“You probably consider that harangue of 
yours very witty, but I don’t agree with you. 
I am not aware if all the young men who are 
seeking Miss Kinsley’s hand make themselves 
ridiculous in the way that you have just de- 
scribed. At all events, you have made yourself 
ridiculous, after your fashion, more than all the 
rest of them, and you have made me an accom- 
plice in the performance.” 

“ I suppose I should have gone into ecstasies 
to show how she had bewitched me ! Is it my 
fault if I fail to find anything more than a 
charming companion in this charming girl? 
And you, mother, who know how little attrac- 
tion marriage has for me, ought you not to have 
foreseen that a great fortune would not be suffi- 
cient to convert me? I have no need of marry- 
ing a rich woman, thank the Lord !” 

“On the contrary, you have need. Among 
fortunes there are figures that are terrible, and 
such is ours : eighty thousand francs of income. 
It costs money to live and keep up appearances, 
and in reality we are scarcely in position to main- 
tain our place in society. Let there come the 
least diminution of our income, the smallest un- 
foreseen expense, and we have forthwith a defi- 
ciency in the budget. Look at things in their 


204 


FONTLUCE. 


true light and you will see that we are leading a 
life of privation. You have no hunting estab- 
lishment, you are unable to do anything in poli- 
tics, I count the dinners that I give, and last 
winter I cut loose from the amateur theatricals 
so as to avoid paying the subscription of fifty 
louis. Suppose we have a financial crisis, or the 
phylloxera get into my vineyards in La Gironde, 
or you have a houseful of children ; you will cut 
a fine figure with the eighty thousand francs of 
income that I shall leave you some day ! Make 
up your mind to it, my dear Bertrand, you must 
make a rich marriage, and that is the reason 
why your patronizing airs of these few days past 
were so entirely out of place ; remember what I 
say, and don’t do it again. It remains to be seen 
whether the other heiresses that come in our way 
will have the personal advantages of this one. I 
wouldn’t venture to promise that they will.” 

So long as it suited Mine, de Fontluce to go 
on talking, her son never so far forgot himself 
as to interrupt her; but she herself was well 
# aware that this abstention was to be set down 
solely to the account *of his respect for her. The 
late marquis would go off like a skyrocket at his 
wife’s first sentence and would haul down his 
flag at the second. Bertrand would let her argu- 
ments run on without saying a word and then 
take them up one at a time, collectedly, like a 


FONTLUCE. 


205 


man whom nothing can ruffle, but whom noth- 
ing can move from his determination when once 
formed. He replied with the rather melancholy 
smile that had almost become habitual to him : 

“The questions that you raise are away abjve 
my experience, and were I to claim the right to 
have an opinion upon financial matters — I, who 
am poorer than my own coachman — that, indeed, 
would be out of place. Still, I cannot help ask- 
ing myself what good can come from that much- 
lauded arrangement that people call a rich mar- 
riage. My father made one, and he never had 
fifty louis in his pocket that he could call his own. ’ ’ 

“If it had been otherwise we should be upon 
the straw, my friend. Your father, best and 
most upright of men, was a spendthrift. He 
completed his own ruin after he had married me; 
every one will tell you so.” 

“Yes, but every one will tell me that his mar- 
riage enriched my father — in appearance only. 
In reality he remained poor, and the poorer that 
he was, as you say, the personification of deli- 
cacy and uprightness. So much for him. As 
for myself, who am in no sense a spendthrift, I 
am obliged to have recourse to your bounty for 
my most trifling expenditures. Now, I am 
twenty-eight and you are forty-seven, and, ex- 
cepting the trouble that you have in moving 
about, your health is excellent. According to 


206 


FONTLUCE. 


every indication — and God who looks down 
upon me knows that I desire nothing so much — 
I shall continue to live on in my condition of 
contented poverty until old age overtakes me. 
This material state of affairs, when compared 
with many others, is not such a bad one, and I 
have accustomed myself to it; only you will ad- 
mit that I am less adapted than others to appre- 
ciate the advantages of a rich marriage. And 
that, mother, is all that I wished to lay before 
you.” 

“Your poverty , answered the marquise, 
“will only last until your marriage. When that 
event occurs I shall make over to you Fontluce, 
land, woods and all, all bought out of my dowry. 
So, you see, your fate rests in your own hands.” 

“Only in a measure, for I suppose that the 
advantages of which you extend the hope to me 
are to be contingent upon your approval of the 
person whom I may select.” 

“That need give you no uneasiness. I know 
you; you are incapable of making an unworthy 
choice. — Come, is Flora Kinsley to be sacrificed? 
After all, she has not refused you.” 

Bertrand, replied with a momentary air of 
cheerfulness : 

“No, she did not refuse me, thanks to the ad- 
dress that I showed in not gi ving her the least 
chance.” 


FONTLUCE. 


207 


“I think that her aunt likes you,’* continued 
the marquise, affecting not to see the joke. 

“Alas! I like her, too. It is just my luck! 
Mrs. Sad well is stately; she doesn’t have much 
to say, doesn’t play billiards or lawn- tennis, 
doesn’t smoke cigarettes; in a word her name is 
not Flora. What a pity that it is the niece, and 
not the aunt, that owns the petroleum wells!” 

Mme. de Fontluce shrugged her shoulders and 
arose from her easy-chair with the majesty that 
she employed to cloak her premature lameness. 

“Let us go in to dinner,” she said. “I heard 
the bell some time ago.” 

She said but very little during the meal and 
retired early to her apartments, as invariably 
happened when her son had opposed her. 

When he was alone Bertrand lighted his cigar, 
glanced at some of the newspapers, and finally 
seated himself at the piano and played the ac- 
companiment while he hummed the air of the 
manuscript music dedicated to his mother that 
was still standing open on the desk of the in- 
strument. 

“That is music that is worthy of the name!” 
he said to himself, as he went out on the terrace 
for a breath of fresh air before going to bed. 

The moon was shining so brightly that he de- 
scended the stone steps and passed on into the 
shadows cast by the great chestnut trees. With- 


208 


FONTLUCE. 


out being conscious that he was singing, he re- 
peated to himself beneath his breath : 

“ Still, should I tell you that I love you I” 

And as he concluded the melody the young man 
thought : 

“What a night for a ride over to the Brettes! 
But they are all asleep there by this time. I 
shall have to wait until to-morrow. ’ ’ 


V. 

Bertrand de Fontluce slept the night 
through very soundly, but next morning he 
could do nothing but think of the De Frezolles 
ladies. 

Whatever the reader may think about it, this 
reverie, which afforded him. considerable pleas- 
ure, was of the domain of M. de Montjon rather 
than of that of M. de Florian ; it was philan- 
thropy, not love, that was causing this activity 
of his reflective faculties. His only thought, 
for the time being, was to infuse a little happi- 
ness into the life of two poor, friendless women, 
and he had no wish, as he thought, for any 
other reward than to see a smile on their faces. 
His experience had taught him, moreover, that 


FONTLUCE. 


209 


it was the younger of them who smiled least 
frequently. 

As he was on his way to the stables to make 
his daily tour of inspection he met Guignard, 
the keeper, who was passing through the ser- 
vants’ quarters, carbine on shoulder, as if in 
zealous performance of his duties. There were 
those who were uncharitable enough to say that 
Guignard gave too fair a field to the poachers, 
now that the marquise was at the chateau with 
Josephine, her maid, and — what was of greater 
interest to him — pretty Etiennette, niece and 
deputy to the former, cum futurd successione. 
Severe as he was on all points of discipline and 
order, Bertrand yet did not ask what his keeper 
had been keeping under the windows of the 
laundry, for he happened to have need of him 
just then. 

The man received some instructions, that were 
given in an undertone, and drew off toward the 
forest, glad to have escaped so cheaply. At four 
o’clock that afternoon he was awaiting his mas- 
ter within musket-shot of the cottage of the 
Brettes, concealed in the underbrush at the edge 
of the thicket. He made his report: Mme. de 
Frezolles had gone out with her daughter, the 
latter pushing the former in the chair that we 
know of. 

“Everything is as it should be,” said the mar- 


210 


FONTLUCE. 


quis. ‘‘Come with me, and pay close attention 
to what I am going to tell you.” 

Thereupon they both emerged into the open 
country and appeared before the little house, of 
which Claudine opened the gates to them at the 
first summons, upon recognizing the Fontluce 
colors. She even accompanied the nev/comers 
to the garden and took an active part in the en- 
suing conference, which was concluded by some 
orders — rather complicated, they seemed to be — 
that Guignard noted in his memorandum-book. 
The marquis had not seemed to be so interested 
in anything for many a day. 

When everything was settled the keeper struck 
out with long strides in the direction of Melun, 
where he had more than one errand to perform 
that evening. The corporal’s widow returned 
to her pots and pans. Bertrand mounted Lion 
again — who had been left to himself this time, 
for all the world like a country doctor’s nag — and 
with smiling eyes fixed upon the loose sand he 
followed at his ease the trace left by two smaU 
feet between the tracks of wheels that were 
barely visible. 

He quickly caught sight of the two persons 
whom he was in quest of, stationed beneath an 
oak at a small distance from the spot where they 
had first met. Mme. de Frezolles had a book in 
her hand that she was reading to herself. Su- 


FONTLUCE. 


211 


zaane was seated upon a bank of moss some 
three paces to the rear, with one elbow upon her 
knee and her chin supported by her hand, her 
senses of sight and hearing directed toward a 
quarter that seemed suspiciously like that of the 
chateau of Fontluce. With her white dress and 
the heavy masses of her falling hair, no longer 
concealed by the hat that lay on the ground at 
her feet, she might have passed for a wood- 
nymph awaiting Echo in the sylvan solitude. 

She turned quickly at the sound of Lion’s 
hoofs crunching the acorns in the path, her 
cheeks overspread with the pearly tints of the 
flitting pallor that always accompanied her least 
emotion. 

“You frightened me!” she said, as if feeling 
that her agitation required an explanation. 

The young man had uncovered. He replied^ 
modulating his voice, naturally very sympa- 
thetic, upon a still gentler tone: 

“I had supposed that the appearance of my 
horse and me was as little terrific as anything 
could possibly be.” 

“Yes, but you come from a direction where 
no one was expecting you— that is to say, by an- 
other road than that of Fontluce. And then you 
glide along so quietly, like a phantom horseman.” 

Bertrand got off his horse and said to Mme. 
de Frezolles as he kissed her hand : 


212 


FONTLUCE. 


“Please be so good, madame, as to convince 
yourself of the fact, and then tell yolir daughter, 
that I am actual flesh and blood. The next time 
that I ride out I will have a groom go ahead of 
me and sound the horn.” 

“That will be nice!” rejoined Suzanne. “I 
am like Dona Soe. It is too bad to have to live 
in the depths of a forest where the sound of the 
horn is never heard.” 

Fontluce seemed not to hear. He was making 
Lion fast to a branch ; the horse had a tying- 
strap under his bridle that day, an indication 
that the halt was not unpremeditated. When 
the operation was concluded he came and seated 
himself upon a great root that protruded from 
the ground close beside the eider of the two wo- 
men and conversed with her about the book that 
she was reading. The unfortunate lady was pe- 
rusing a volume of — but let us give offense to 
no one. Bertrand expressed his respectful con- 
dolence to the reader. 

“ When I am at home,” she answered, “I give 
my attention to more serious authors, and 1 have 
plenty of time to devote to them ; but when I go 
wandering about your woods I allow myself a 
novel now and then, and the book cases of the 
Brettes are not very well stocked with the latest 
works.” 

The conversation between the marquis and 


FONTLUCE. 


213 


Suzanne’s mother was continued on this foot- 
ing of easy familiarity. The girl, forgotten, 
apparently, had resumed her attitude of a 
dreaming Muse and was speculating with a 
feeling of surprise upon the pleasure that this 
rich and elegant young man, accustomed, doubt- 
less, to much more amusing associates, took, or 
seemed to take, in the conversation of a poor in- 
valid. She felt in her heart that his deserving 
was so great as really to entitle him to their 
gratitude, for she did not know how little the 
life of this stranger contained of tender confi- 
dence and gayety suited to his years. 

After an hour spent in this manner, Bertrand 
arose and took his leave. He had not spoken 
to Mdlle. de Frezolles three times, and yet he 
had inscribed his name indelibly upon the mem- 
ory of that child whose heart contained as yet 
only unsullied pages. As for him, his suscep- 
tible feelings were overflowing at once with a 
pity that was aroused to the point of tenderness 
and an ill-defined delight. Never had isolation 
and misfortune touched him thus with the bit- 
terness of healing sympathy, and for the first 
time he felt that he was not alone in the world, 
he, of whom four or five hundred persons used 
to say, as they met him on his way to the Bois, 
or the opera, or the races: “That is Fontluce, a 
very good friend of mine!” 


214 


FONTLUCE. 


He did not sleep very well that night, but you 
are not to think that it was a lover’s care that 
kept him awake. If he talked in his sleep, 
which no one can assert to be the case, it was 
probably the name of the keeper Guignard, and 
not Suzanne’s, that escaped his lips. His first 
thought upon awaking was : 

“Has my messenger carried out his instruc- 
tions? Have they commenced the work? What 
will those ladies say when they come to the 
window? I would give a good deal to see how 
surprised they will be.” 

In place of mentioning a definite sum that he 
would be willing to give he only sighed, and 
this was very prudent on his part, for as times 
were then he could not have given a large 
amount in payment of any enjoyment, no mat- 
ter how innocent it might be. 

It was the most difficult thing in the world 
for him to keep quiet the remainder of the morn- 
ing and part of the afternoon. After breakfast 
the marquise wished to re-introduce Flora as 
the subject of conversation. Perhaps a little 
adroitness on their part might make the cool- 
ness — a little too marked — that the young man 
had shown appear to be the result of delicacy 
or timidity on his part. At this, however, Ber- 
trand got angry in good earnest, declaring that 
he had no desire of presenting himself to his 


FONTLUCE. 


215 


bride-elect, whoever she might be, ia the guise 
of an idiot. 

“When a woman suits me,” he added, curling 
his mustache, “there will be no need of dinning 
my lesson into my ears for me to repeat to her.” 

“My son,” said the marquise, “you are adopt- 
ing the manners of the times, and that is a fine 
declaration of independence.” 

“Oh, no,” he said with a shake of his head. 
“That would be equivalent to asserting that I 
am more powerful than I really am. But for 
the Lord’s sake let no one ask me for declara- 
tions of love — to Flora Kinsley.” 

He went out on horseback at about his usual 
hour, and reached the Brettes in short order, his 
pockets stuffed with the best of the novels that 
were lying on his table. As he came out of the 
wood he had every reason to be satisfied; the 
work was going on all right. 

Two carpenters, supervised by Guignard, were 
completing the task of surrounding with a pro- 
tecting network the hedge of the small garden, 
in which there were as many breaches as there 
ever were in the walls of a city that had been 
carried by storm. Within the inclosure, hence- 
forth proof against the four-footed marauders of 
the forest, a florist from Melun and several as- 
sistants were putting the finishing touches to 
their beds and borders. The alleys were raked 


216 


FONTLUCE. 


up, the borders straightened, the vegetable- 
frames cleared of weeds, and in them the freshly 
planted lettuce rejoiced the eye with hopes of 
future salads. In a word, the garden was very 
like a regiment drawn up for review on the day 
after a battle, when the dead have been buried, 
the rents sewed up and the tunics brushed. Vic- 
tory remains with them, but how many empty 
places there are about the standard ! 

Mme. de Frezolles was watching operations 
from her easy-chair, where she was sitting in 
the shade of an old pear-tree. Fontluce had 
first promised himself to conduct his examina- 
tion from a distance and return without enter- 
ing the house, leaving his books with Claudine, 
so that he might not appear to be looking for 
thanks. He looked forward with such pleasur- 
able anticipation, however, to the delight that 
he hoped to read on the faces of the mother and 
daughter that he had not the courage to c^rry 
this fine programme into execution, but he found 
himself measurably disappointed in his fond 
hopes. 

Suzanne was not visible, and her mother, as 
she caught sight of Bertrand, evinced her grati- 
tude in a way that savored a little of haughtiness. 

“My dear sir,” she said, after the young man 
had made his bow, “you do things after the 
fashion of the grand age.” 


FONTLUCE. 


217 

“Oh, madame,” he replied with a laugh, 
“what a pity it is that my mother cannot hear 
you! Only two hours ago she was scolding me 
for having the ideas of my time.” 

“You endeavor to throw the hounds off the 
scent,” rejoined Mme. de Frezolles, “but you 
will not prevent me from speaking of things as 
they are, as an old woman like me has the right 
to do. Haven’t you, on this occasion, carried 
your politeness to a point where it becomes a 
little embarrassing to the recipients of it?” 

Bertrand, greatly moved by the turn that the 
interview was taking, answered with the warmth 
of a criminal pleading in his own justification: 

“Mon Dieu! madame, what you are so kind 
as to call politeness is nothing but restitution in 
disguise. Do you know the responsibility that 
the law imposes on us owners of forests? I am 
afraid not. But I know it, and I know that 
year in and year out you might bring six dozen 
suits against me, and you would win them every 
one, with costs and interest, all payable in good 
hard coin of the realm. You have not taken 
any such step, because you are a woman, and a 
woman of refinement. Is that a reason why I 
should seek to make money out of your gener- 
osity? Observe, if you please, that in that case 
I should be receiving a gift from you. Suppose 
yourself in my place; could you stand that? 


218 


FONTLUCE. 


Henceforth I shall not be compelled to blush 
every time that I have the honor of meeting 
you. That’s all, and I don’t very well see how 
you can be angry with me for being an honest 
man and paying my debts.” 

“At least, sir, is it all true, what you have 
been telling me?” 

“Do you want me to send my steward to you 
with his books? They will show you what he 
pays every year to the folks on the river, and 
what he paid to the people who were here before 
you.” 

Mme. de Frezolles, Heaven be praised ! did 
not insist upon the production of the books of 
the mighty Yinson, the marquise’s right arm. 
Bertrand had reckoned confidently that this man 
of severe ideas would never hear anything of the 
follies that were going on at the Brettes, to be 
paid for by drafts on his private account. 

Once relieved of her scruples of pride, Mme. 
cle Frezolles seemed delighted with the idea that 
she was again to have flowers blooming beneath 
her windows. 

“Not on my own account,” she said, by way 
of making things clear, “but for my daughter. 
By the way, where can the child have gone? 
Suzanne!” 

“Mamma,” responded a voice in tones of silky 
softness, proceeding from behind a curtain not 


FONTLUCE. 


219 


an arm’s length away from Fontluce. At the 
same time the curtain was parted, and Suzanne 
showed herself, pretty and fresh as Marguerite 
on her balcony, only she descended to join Faust 
in the garden instead of his joining her. Her 
mother said to her : 

“Did you hear and understand the explana- 
tions of our kind neighbor? He makes a mighty 
shrewd lawyer when he has a case to plead 
against himself. It appears — ” 

“Oh, mamma!’’ interrupted Mdlle. de Frezol- 
les, with a slight contraction of her dusky eye- 
brows, “I heard very well and understood per- 
fectly. I assure you that it was no such difficult 
matter. ’ ’ 


VI. 

September had come, and the houses were 
filled with sportsmen and the plain with the pop- 
ping of guns. Mme. de Fontluce, however, was 
not fond of noise, nor of numerous assemblages, 
which wearied her. She so arranged matters 
every year as to have a succession of friends or 
poor relations who came and relieved one another 
in rotation about her easy-chair during her four 
months of villegiatura, so that she might not be 
condemned to uninterrupted tete-a-tete with her 


220 


FONTLUCE. 


son, destitute as it was of cordiality and often 
strained, as we have seen. 

Bertrand, for his part, did not seek men’s so- 
ciety, and, to tell the truth, had but few friends; 
for he disdained to select them from a class in- 
ferior to his own, and as for associating with 
his equals, the state of pecuniary dependence in 
which his mother kept him made the thing too 
painful for him. That year, in particular, he 
seemed to be more of a misanthrope than ever ; 
but all at once his sporting tastes, that had been 
displayed with much moderation up to that time, 
suddenly broke out with great fury. Almost 
daily did he sally forth alone, gun on shoulder 
and dog at heel, like a bourgeois of the county- 
seat going out to beat up the stubble. Some- 
times he brought in game, but not always; that, 
however, was not owing to the fact that feather 
and fur were less abundant than they had been 
on the property; but scarcely a day passed, un- 
less it might be a Friday, when Claudine had 
not a partridge to pluck, and when the rag- 
woman passed the house with her donkey and 
cart, it was seldom that she did not have to 
maintain an argument with Mme. Plantegenet, 
widow, upon the state of the market for rabbit- 
skins. 

It is hardly necessary to say that Bertrand 
did not give away his game without receiving 


FONTLUCE. 


221 


some equivalent for it ; so many birds, so many 
visits to the chatelaines of the Brettes, as they 
laughingly called themselves. Always full of 
business, according to his own account, he would 
make a great to do about sitting down, but 
would end by taking a chair and frequently re- 
tain it for hours on end. Besides, he almost 
always had a newspaper for Mme. de Frezolles 
and a review for her daughter in his game-bag. 
He no longer had occasion to go so frequently 
to hunt them up in the forest, moreover. 

“IS’ow that we have such a pretty garden, 
thanks to your scrupulosity,” said the invalid, 
“I no longer desire to leave it.” 

Suzanne was present at these conversations, 
but did not take much part in them. She lis- 
tened in silence, heaving many a deep sigh as 
she stroked Phanor, or turned with idle hand 
the pages of the book that lay open on her lap. 
What did she care for all those questions and 
answers that fell on her inattentive ear? The 
only question that she was burning to ask, that 
was present to her thought continually and that 
must always remain unanswered, was this: 

“When are you going to tell us of your mar- 
riage with that pretty American girl?” 

For the servants of the chateau had imbibed 
the notion that their young master was engaged 
to the fair Flora, and through Etiennette Guig- 


222 


FONTLUCE. 


nard learned what was going on in the servants’ 
hall; and, thanks to Giiignard, Claudine received 
the latest information, and through the medium 
of Claudine Suzanne had learned the great news 
that ought to have given her pleasure: five mill- 
ions! But the poor child did not feel any pleas- 
ure. Why? The Lord alone could have told, 
and Phanor, with whom Suzanne frequently had 
confidential conversations. 

As to Mme. de Frezolles, Claudine, in her 
wisdom, had come to the conclusion that it was 
better to leave her in ignorance. 

“You see, mademoiselle,” this considerate 
person had said, “just as soon as Monsieur le 
Marquis is married that will be the last we shall 
see of him, and that will be a great sorrow for 
madame, who is such great friends with the 
young man that one would think she had known 
him ever since he w^as a baby. So we won’t 
worry her ; bad news always travels fast 
enough.” 

In the meantime Pontluce was happier than 
he had ever been before in his life, and truly it 
is a great happiness for a noble- hearted man to 
look upon two women like those every day and 
be able to say to himself: “It is to me that 
they owe all the sunny side of their existence.” 

In addition to this refined enjoyment, there 
was the attractive stimulus of difficulties of all 


FONTLUCE, 


223 


sorts to be surmounted. Bertrand had con- 
stantly to exercise all the ingenuity of the smug- 
gler, and what made matters worse was that it 
cost him as much trouble to export his smuggled 
wares as it does others to import them. The run- 
ning of the smallest basket of black- Hamburgs 
from the graperies of the chateau constituted an 
adventure of importance; not that the marquise 
was stingy with her grapes — the sick poor of the 
neighborhood would have told a very different 
story — but she was jealous of her authority in 
general. In this particular case, moreover, Ber- 
trand had a shrewd idea that his mother would 
not be altogether pleased with the charitable im- 
pulse that made him traverse so often, on foot 
or on horseback, the two leagues that separated 
the chateau of Fontluce from the cottage of the 
Brettes. 

At this point obstacles of another kind began 
to make themselves felt. Mme. de Frezolles 
was no exception to human nature in general, 
which is quick to accustom itself to the comforts 
of life and finds nothing unnatural in the bene- 
fits conferred by others, even when these have 
no apparent motive to justify them. Still, at 
certain moments she rebelled against what she 
called those trips of the ant coming to the hill 
loaded and going away light. 

“Some of these fine days,” she said, half in 


224 


FONTLUCE. 


joke, half in earnest, “your people will wake up 
and find that there is nothing left of the chateau 
of Fontluce but four bare walls. They will look 
for the furniture, it will all be here in our house. 
My dear sir, things cannot go on in this way.” 

It must be admitted that Bertrand had dis- 
played considerable address in his operations. 
One of the most difficult of his undertakings had 
been to get a piano into the household of the 
Brettes, where there were absolutely no super- 
fluities. This matter had engrossed the mar- 
quis’s undivided attention for a whole week. 
Finally the Pleyel, almost as good as new, that 
had been hired at Melun, had been introduced at 
the cost of a greater expenditure of lies than is 
required to launch a new issue of shares on the 
stock-exchange. 

“This ancient spinnet,” the young man had 
said, “was mouldering away up in my garret 
without ever being tuned, for we have two 
others. If Mademoiselle Suzanne will be so 
kind as to play on it once in a while she will be 
doing a kind action. She will keep the worms 
from eating the strings.” 

Suzanne’s playing, as may be supposed, had 
grown a little rusty, but her fingers soon re- 
gained their nimbleness. At the same time she 
recovered her voice, which, if not a remarkable 
one, possessed great freshness and some singu- 


FONTLUCE. 


225 


larly touching tones. Mme. de Frezolles con- 
gratulated her on it the first evening with tears 
in her eyes, quite beside herself v/ith pleasure. 
The poor cripple had not enjoyed herself so in 
four years. 

“AYhere did you get the sentiment that you 
used to be deficient in?” she asked. 

Suzanne blushed up to her eyes as she an- 
swered ; ‘ ‘ That is because I am getting to be an old 
maid. In a month from now I shall be twenty.” 

Then she arose and deposited a kiss upon each 
of her mother’s eyes, as if she would close them 
against the light that was beginning to appear. 
The dear woman did not understand that the 
true answer lay in this caress, which, being 
translated into intelligible French, meant: 

“Alas ! no ; he does not always go away 
empty-handed. He has stolen your dearest 
treasure, your daughter’s heart, and he does 
not know it.” 

From this day forth Bertrand’s visits were 
cheered alternately by the pleasures of music 
and of conversation, and this did not tend to 
render them either shorter or more infrequent. 
The scores of the chateau followed the same 
round as the books, and, without being written 
dovv'n in black and white, the verb to love was 
conjugated in all its moods and tenses at the 
Brettes nearly every afternoon. 


226 


FONTLUCE. 


One day the young tenor came to the concert 
with a roll that contained the famous love-song 
dedicated to the marquise, and he at once pro- 
ceeded to relate its history — as much of it as he 
was acquainted with, at least. 

“Perantoni!” repeated Mme. de Frezolles. 
“Wait a minute. I remember him. He was a 
teacher of great merit that I must have met at 
some of my friends’. Yes, that is the name, 
Perantoni — a tall young man whose eyes flashed 
fire whenever he played the violin at concerts or 
at private entertainments. Your mother was 
doubtless one of his favorite scholars. Come, 
let’s see what his work amounts to.” 

Suzanne began to read over the piece, but her 
mother quickly interrupted her : 

“It is written for a man’s voice. Come, sir! 
Besides, it is family music, for you.” 

The marquis submitted to his sentence with 
what grace he might. 

“The notes are scarcely legible,” he said by 
way of excuse. 

The truth is, however, that he was looking too 
much at Suzanne and not enough at his notes. 
The girl bowed her head beneath Bertrand’s 
voice as beneath a downpour of rain; she seemed 
as if she was trying to efface herself behind the 
key-board. As if still further to increase her 
distress Fontluce added: 


FONTLUCE. 


227 


“Those words seem written expressly to be 
sung to you, mademoiselle.” 

Now the words that he had just sung were: 

“Still, were I to tell you that I love you !“ 

Suzanne looked at him tremblingly with eyes 
swimming with tenderness and brimful of hope; 
the look of a Diana, disarmed and helpless, em- 
anating from the eyes of the Goddess of Love. 
Quick as a flash Bertrand perceived that the 
heart of this beautiful creature was his own; 
but he also understood why it was that ever 
since he first set eyes on Suzanne he himself had 
been actuated by but one single motive, to make 
her happy and behold a smile on her face. Still, 
it was necessary to say something in explanation 
of the words that had produced such a magical 
effect. 

“Why, yes,” he continued, endeavoring to 
retain his self-control. “Are you not — are you 
not a ‘ blue- eyed brunette,’ like her that De 
Musset sings of?” 

Mdlle. de Frezolles bowed her head anew. 
The allusion that she thought she had caught 
and that had made her tremble so was not the 
one that related to the color of her eyes. 

Almost immediately after this the young man 
took his leave, and struck out into the forest 
v/ith long strides. He proceeded at a more lei- 


228 


FONTLUCE. 


surely pace, howev^er, as soon as he perceived 
that he was alone among the untenanted shades. 
He was late for dinner again, but there was no 
American maiden, rich or poor, waiting for him 
there this time. Only his mother, flanked by 
an ancient lady cousin, her guest for the time 
being, was in the drawing-room when he made 
his belated entree. 

“Oh, these young men, nowadays!” exclaimed 
the famished guest. “ How they do try our 
patience!” 

The marquis, deep in reverie, and yet feverish- 
ly impatient, was unconscious of this tart apos- 
trophe. Neither did he hear the reply that his 
mother made, accompanied by a strange look : 

“Yes, they try our patience; indeed, they do 
try our patience.” 

Mine, de Fontluce never took her eyes off her 
son all that evening. What was meant by those 
inquisitorial looks was best expressed by a word 
that the maitre d’ hotel whispered in dread 
Josephine’s ear as he took his seat at table be- 
side her: “It smells of gun-powder up there 
in the drawing-room!” 

“Oh!” replied the haughty minion between 
her teeth, “it is nothing but poudre d'escam- 
pette.’^ * 

* Paronomasia. Escopette, a firearm. Escampette, a 
disorderly retreat, a “scampering. ” —Tr. 


FONTLUCE. 


229 


For she was not ashamed to make a pun when 
in good humor. 


VII. 

The following day, when Bertrand de Font- 
luce beheld the lowly roof of the Brettes rising 
among the oaks at the verge of the forest, he 
drew rein with a choking sensation, like a trav- 
eler overwhelmed with admiration at the sight 
of some famed locality; he laid his hand upon 
his heart and said aloud: “Dear house!” 

In these two words were summed up all the 
ecstasies that had occupied his mind during the 
long watches of the night, and which, by their 
sober delight and restrained emotion, were 
strangely different from the impulsive feelings 
that generally characterize the beginnings of 
love in a man of his time of life. Those insidi- 
ous maladies, however, that come on one slowly, 
and seem to be in no hurry to seize their victim, 
are not apt to be the shortest. 

“Oh, heavens!” he thought, “this love, pure 
as , the new-fallen snow, this heart that now 
awakes for the first time, this peerless beauty, 
this lovely mind — all these blessings are placed 
before me here in this deserted spot, far from 
every envious glance, far from every menace 


230 


FONTLUCE. 


of evil ! She loves me ! Her being waits to be 
absorbed in mine! Her sweet soul wells up and 
overflows from her eyes like a vase that is filled 
too full ! And yet she believes that her will is 
stronger than her love, and that no one has read 
her secret. Oh, heavenly joys vouchsafed to us 
two, but most of ail to me ! To tell her that she 
is loved, to make her still more my own, to fill 
that heart, slowly, surely, as the rising tide 
floods the house that is built upon the river- 
bank, even to its remotest corners! And then 
to make her mine in the eyes of all the world, 
my own forever ! To feel the delight that her 
most insignificant pleasures, even her daily 
bread, shall come from me ! And then, at last, 
to begin to live, to lead a life of usefulness for 
others, of honor and independence for myself, a 
life worthy of a man!” 

As he drew near the Brettes Fontluce endeav- 
ored to subdue the glad expression that he knew 
must be irradiating his face. l^Ime. de Frezolles 
had often said to him: ‘‘Your countenance is 
eloquent! Now that I know you, I defy you to 
keep the most trifling thing a secret from me!” 

And yet there was a matter of importance 
that must be concealed — for a time. 

At the very first glance, however, he saw that 
he was not to be called on to bring his powers of 
dissimulation into play that day. His venerable 


FONTLUCE. 


231 


friend seemed greatly agitated. As soon as he 
entered the house, almost before she had replied 
to his salutation, she said to him : 

“How fortunate it is that you are come! I 
am going to ask you to explain this letter that I 
have just received — registered, I should like to 
know why. It frightened me at fii*st, although 
I did not understand it very well, but I found 
your name mentioned in it, and that served to 
reassure me. Could anything disagreeable be 
expected from you and yours!” 

The young man ran over the suspicious mis- 
sive, which was from a notary, at Melun. 
Thanks to the professional jargon of the head- 
clerk who had concocted it, it was about as in- 
comprehensible as possible; but upon reading it 
a second time Bertrand finally caught its mean- 
ing. It was “for the purpose of advising Ma- 
dame veuve de Frezolles” that the poor little 
house that she was occupying by virtue of a ver- 
bal agreement had been bought by the very high 
and mighty Marquise de Fontluce, and that she 
must move out by Martinmas next, “say the 
eleventh day of November, by midday, in ac- 
cordance with the usages of the place.” 

The young marquis turned very pale; it was 
his way of showing anger. He refiected for the 
space of half a minute with all the coolness that 
he could command. He had come over on horse- 


232 


FONTLUCE. 


back that day, fortunately. Feigning an indif- 
ference that he did not feel, he said, without ac- 
cepting the old lady’s invitation to be seated : 

“Faith, madanie, I am as little skilled as you 
are in making out these incoherencies, but half 
an hour of sharp trotting will bring me to the 
door of this fool of a notary who gives us a 
headache with his confounded riddles, and I 
will tell you all about it, if not this evening — 
for there is another person that I shall probably 
have to see^ — certainly within twenty-four hours. 
Be so kind as to make my respects to Mademoi- 
selle de Frezolles. Neither you nor she need 
have any fear for the future, take my word for 
it, as sure as my name is Fontluce.” 

Twenty minutes afterward he burst into the 
lawyer’s office at Melun, very much as Louis 
XIV. burst upon his Parliament. I would be 
willing to bet something that the young marquis 
did not display less wrath than did the monarch 
when he was on the point of freeing himself 
from his leading-strings ; the only difference 
was that he could not very well say: “I am the 
State,” and the notary, with much politeness, 
gave him so to understand. 

“Besides,” added the honest man, “I am un- 
acquainted with what I may call the concomi- 
tant circumstances of the business. My friend 
Vinson, Madame la Marquise’s steward, com- 


FONTLUCE. 


233 


missioned me to buy a bit of worthless land for 
which I’m hanged if they didn’t make us pay 
nine thousand francs, for we were fools enough 
to let them see we wanted it. ’ ’ 

“And why should you want it, in the Lord’s 
name?” cried Bertrand. “That’s what I would 
like to know, if you please!” 

“There is a young man, one of the two game- 
keepers on the property, who is about to be mar- 
ried — Monsieur le Marquis doubtless knows all 
about it — and it is the intention to put him into 
this little house, which would seem to have been 
built expressly for the purpose, so it appears, 
exactly on the margin of Madame la Marquise’s 
woods. ’ ’ 

“Indeed!” roared the imitation Louis XIV. 
“So the Brettes was built and — some one of my 
acquaintance went to the expense of putting up 
a network and setting out rose-bushes, and all to 
delight the pretty eyes of Madame Guignard 
that is to be! Ah, ah! The animal is going to 
marry, is he? Well, he is not married yet, my 
dear sir, mark my word, and bear in mind what 
I am telling you!” 

This was the second declaration that the young 
man had made and supported by an oath. He 
was to make others, more weighty still, before 
long, as will be seen presently. 

“So,” he concluded, rising from his chair, “it 


234 


FONTLUCE. 


is my mother who is turning Mesdames de Fre- i 
zolles out of doors?” 

“Monsieur le Marquis doubtless alludes to the 
present occupants. It is true, we had to let ; 
them know that we wish to obtain possession, [ 
by a simple business letter, as is customary, and ; 
which is at the same time more expeditious and 
less—” ! 

Bertrand de Fontluce was already on Lion’s j 
back again, who must have thought that he was 
having a pretty hard time of it that day, for he 
would not have had a chance to draw breath be- 
tween Melun aod the chateau if, fortunately (for 
the horse), Guignard had not happened to be 
walking along the cross-road that our cavalier 
was following at top speed. 

“Keeper, a word with you,” said Bertrand, 
pulling up short at risk of his neck. “You are 
about to be married, I hear?” 

“The matter is not fully settled. Monsieur le 
Marquis, but there is some talk of it. It is 
Mam’selle Etiennette — ” 

“Oh! very well. And when married you are 
going to live at the Brettes?” 

Guignard opened wide his eyes and mouth 
and answered not; he did not understand at all. 
Fontluce, however, understood. He gave Lion 
the rein, paying no further attention to the 
keeper, who stood planted at the roadside like 


FONTLUCE. 


235 

a sign-post in mute amazement, mingled with 
vague uneasiness, the result of the dark looks 
that his master had cast on him while speaking 
to him. The latter, as he spurred madly on, 
muttered between his teeth: 

“The business has been well managed; there 
is nothing wanting, not even the pretext. May 
my patron saint grant me presently not to utter 
v/ords unfit to fall from the lips of a son, even 
when his mother tries his patience so sorely!” 

The marquise was less surprised than Guig- 
nard had been when she beheld her son enter- 
ing her study with his bellicose aspect, for she 
had been expecting the storm. She had even 
thought to have seen him an hour earlier than 
she did, not having counted on his taking Melun 
on his way home. Like Guignard, however, 
she was uneasy; Bertrand had an ugly look 
about him. That was the thought that was 
uppermost in her mind as she observed and 
involuntarily admired him, for he was superb 
thus in his repressed conflict* between rage and 
duty. She said to herself, rather doubtfully: 

“I wonder if he is in love in earnest? He 
appears to me quite changed.” 

Changed, indeed, he was, much more than his 
mother could imagine. He began by saluting 
her with a very low, courtly reverence, then he 
laid his hat upon a table, next he took off his 


236 


FONTLUCE. 


gloves, very deliberately, finally he went and | 
took a chair from the other end of the apart- | 
meat; all that for the sake of gaining time. I 

“Mother,” he commenced, “it is possible to ii 
do a bad action without being aware of it, and t 
that is what is imminent now in your case, i 
You are about to cast a poor old woman, who i 
cannot rise from her chair, out upon the inhos. ! 
pi table world. You are less an invalid than she | 
is, thank God! but still you are an invalid. Put j 
yourself in her place and try to think what 
would be your feelings if, like her, you were 
poor, very poor, and obliged to seek a place 
wherein to lay your head.” 

“1 might answer you,” said Mme. de Font- 
luce, “by saying that people who own a piano 
cannot be so very poor. I have a better defense, 
however, to make against my son, who accuses 
me of inhumanity. Another dwelling-place has 
been secured for these two women, and I give 
you my word that they will be more comfortable 
there than at the Brettes. It is situated at some 
distance from here, but the banks of the Marne 
are as pleasant as those of the Seine, which, 
moreover, are not visible from their house. As 
for the moving and transportation of them and 
their chattels, that is a matter that I will at- 
tend to.” 

Bertrand grew pale with grief as he saw how 


FONTLUCE. 


237 


carefully every preparation had been made for 
carrying the sentence into effect. With a strong 
effort to maintain his calmness he replied: 

“I see that you have foreseen everything, ex- 
cepting one thing. It may be that ‘these two 
women,’ as you call them, will not accept your 
alms.” 

Very imprudently the marquise made answer: 

“I do not see why. They accept yours.” 

There was an interval of silence. The young 
man carried one of his hands to his eyes, and, 
turning away his head, crushed beneath the lids 
two tears that had been summoned there by the 
wrath that he had great difficulty in restraining. 
Then he felt a great calmness come and take 
possession of his being. Nothing could happen 
that would be likely to carry him to undue 
lengths, now that he had heard those words and 
had not failed in the respectful duty that he 
owed his mother. He answered, very slowly: 

“I hope that God will forgive you for the 
atrocious insult that you have cast on those 
noble women who have done you no harm!” 

“No harm! I think you must take me for a 
fool. The noble women that you speak of have 
robbed me of your affection ; that is what they 
have done. I can see now why it is that you are so 
superbly indifferent to marriage and the young la- 
dies who are brought forward for your approval. ” 


238 


FONTLUCE. 


“I entreat, mother,*’ said the young man, 
rising from his chair, “let not this discussion go 
any further. Your rights here are those of a mis- 
tress; mine are those of the most abject of beg- 
gars. If Madame de Frezolles has to leave her 
home against her will, on that same day I will 
leave this house. That I will do, I swear it by 
the salvation of my father’s soul!” 

“Where will you go?” 

“Where one goes when he has nothing: to 
serve as a soldier in Africa, Tonquin, or any- 
where else, no matter where. I am an officer of 
reserves; the thing can be arranged. You need 
not smile; I tell you that this is not the time 
for it!” 

Mme. de Fontluce tightened the grasp of her 
fingers upon the carved arms of her easy-chair. 

“And you tell me that they have not harmed 
me?” she cried. “You can see for yourself 
how I am situated. I am to make my choice, 
yes or no, in plain terms; my son serving as 
a soldier in Africa, or his— pleasures sheltered 
beneath a roof that belongs to me. There you 
have the sorrow and the shame between which I 
must make my election!” 

“Then you are not even willing to grant that 
v/hat I have done may have been done from a 
pure motive!” Bertrand replied. “Yo, mother, 
it is not my wish that you should suffer either 


FONTLUCE. 


239 


shame or sorrow, but neither do I wish that a 
poor, feeble old woman should have to endure 
the fearful suffering of an ignominious expulsion 
from her home. Do you imagine that she will 
not understand what you think of her and her 
daughter? What will life be for her during the 
two months’ respite that are granted her? Be- 
fore the term expires they will have placed her 
in her grave. And then think what a shock it 
will be, how entirely unprepared she is. Let us 
take time about this; believe me, it is best; and, 
to begin with, take away this sword of Damocles. 
Let me go over there to-morrow and tell this 
poor lone woman — a widow, like you, a woman 
of quality, like you — that she can slumber in 
peace, that there has been a mistake, that the 
notary acted without instructions, or what you 
will. Then we will see what is best to be done, 
and you shall have no cause for alarm; for, even 
as I will go away so surely as she goes, so, if 
she remains, I promise never to see her or her 
daughter without your consent. Can you trust 
my word?” 

The marquise was not wanting in perspicacity; 
she saw that it would not answer to carry mat- 
ters with too high a hand at the present j uncture. 

“My friend,” she said, “I would trust you 
sooner than any living being, and to prove it I 
accept your proposition. I know that you will 


240 


FONTLUCE. 


be guided by reason. A young man of your age 
and tastes ought to marry. What have you 
gained by turning up your nose at Miss Kinsley? 
Do you think it was a good influence that led 
you to stultify yourself in that way?” 

“Mother,” said the young man, “you seem 
to have Miss Kinsley on the brain. Do you re- 
member our conversation on the day of her ar- 
rival at Fontluce? You thought even then that 
I was something more than cold. Well, what- 
ever you may think, whatever you may have 
been told by those who — to whom you look for 
information, I declare to you upon my word that 
at that time I was unaware of the very existence 
of the Brettes, and I did not even know the names 
of the De Frezolles ladies. Do not, then, hold 
them responsible for 'what has happened. I will 
go and see them to-morrow and set their minds 
at rest, and after that the road to their house 
shall know me no more, even as I have prom- 
ised, unless we shall have arrived at some agree- 
ment on the subject. You have my word.” 

The treaty of peace was signed on the some- 
what unstable basis of these preliminaries, with- 
out any great demonstration of enthusiasm on 
either side, for it really was not so much a peace 
as an armed neutrality. The heavy guns had 
not yet been got into position. 


FONTLUCE. 


241 


VIIL 

‘‘So,” said Mme. de Frezolles, the following 
day, “you are now the owner of these premises?” 

“My mother is, madame; not I.” 

“What difference does it make?” 

“A great deal; but it will be all the same so 
far as you are concerned, I hope. You may in- 
habit our house for a hundred years, if such is 
your pleasure. My mother has promised as 
much.” 

Suzanne, who v/as present at the interview, 
asked; “Are you not afraid that this promise 
may be an inconvenience for Madame de Font- 
luce? For I don’t suppose that she bought the 
house for the purpose of letting it.” 

“Certainly not,” replied Bertrand. “But 
when I told her who her tenants were and what 
their circumstances, there was nothing more said 
about inflicting on them the annoyance of a 
compulsory moving.” 

“It is exceedingly obliging on her part,” in- 
genuously said Mme. de Frezolles, who remem- 
bered the days when people had been considerate 
toward her. 

Suzanne was silent, having seen more of the 
mortiflcations that follow in the train of poverty, 
but she blushed uncomfortably at this thought 


242 


FONTLUCE. 


which arose to her mind: “Here it is six weeks 
now that he has been coming to see us almost 
every day, and only as late as yesterday his 
mother was unaware of our existence!” 

In the space of a second, however, her face 
became whiter than it had been red before. The 
marquis, loyally observant of the treaty that had 
been concluded the day before, said to Mme. de 
Frezolles: “I now have to impart to you a bit 
of news that is less pleasing — to myself. I shall 
have to be absent for a time — ” 

“What! we shall see no more of you?” 

“We shall see each other less frequently for 
some weeks to come,” said Bertrand, with emo- 
tion. “But the day when you shall ‘see no more 
of me’ will never come, unless you see fit to close 
your door against me!” 

“Good heavens! what an idea!” cried the 
kind-hearted woman, extending her hand to 
Fontluce, who kissed it respectfully. 

“If you will allow me,” he continued, “I will 
take a flying look at the property before saying 
good-by to you. Is the network all right? How 
are Mademoiselle Suzanne’s roses and Claudine’s 
cabbages getting on? Have you anything for 
the painter or the roofer to do?” 

He had risen. Mme. de Frezolles recalled her 
daughter to the sensation of reality, for her 
thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. 


FONTLUCE. 


243 


“Accompany him who is henceforth to be 
master of our fate on his rounds,’’ said she 
laughingly. 

Suzanne was not laughing; no more was Ber- 
trand. They entered what was magniloquently 
styled the “grand alley,” which might have a 
width of something like three feet. From its 
remotest end to the fauteuil of the dear invalid 
where it stood before the doorstep one might 
count a hundred paces if he was careful not to 
make his stride too long. 

When they had measured half the distance, 
the young man began, in a voice that was any- 
thing but steady: 

“Mademoiselle, within the last few hours the 
question of my future has been under discussion 
between my mother and myself. It lies in my 
hands to decide it, but before doing so there is 
one thing that I wish to learn that you will par- 
don me for asking you so — abruptly. I can see 
no happiness for myself in that future that I 
spoke of unless you consent to share it with me. 
Is my dream one that may not be realized? All 
my life, depends on the answer that you shall 
make me.” 

They had reached the network that was half 
hidden in the grass. Suzanne, supporting her- 
self upon one of the stakes that served to sustain 
it, her gaze lost in the distance among the great 


244 


FONTLUCE. 


oaks of the clearing, seemed not to understand. 
Her breath came and went spasmodically ; finally 
she answered by asking this question: 

“But — you are engaged?” 

“No,” he replied with emphasis; “never have 
I asked, or desired to ask, any woman the ques- 
tion that you have just heard from my lips, and 
which I now reiterate. I am free, and have always 
been free. It is all my being, intact, that I lay 
at your feet, with a love that is, and will be, the 
solitary one of my life. How can you doubt? 
What objection can you make? What else than 
your gentle beauty and your sweet perfume could 
draw me to you, dear fiower of the forest, fresh 
and kindly as its shade!” 

He was not questioning her now; it was a 
song of gladness that fell from his lips, the song 
of triumphant love that Nature teaches to every 
living thing. He had learned what he so longed 
to know. As the music of those sweet words, 
so strange to Suzanne’s ear, so unexpected, vi- 
brated on the still air, she raised her blue eyes 
from the ground where the ferns were taking on 
the yellow tints of autumn to the branches of 
the oaks, then to their tops. When the young 
man ceased she started with a kind of terror. 
Was the dream already ended? 

Two lips were gently pressed upon her hand 
which, burning hot, was hanging at her side. 


FONTLUCE. 


245 


From where she sat in her easy-chair the sick 
woman might have seen Bertrand de Fontluce 
on his knees before her daughter ; but she never 
thought of watching them, knowing them as she 
did, and trusting the one almost as much as she 
did the other. 

“ Don’t remain thus,” entreated Suzanne ; 
“get up, I beg you.” 

Then, after a brief silence, without looking at 
the happy supplicant, she added in a lower voice: 

“I can feel your eyes reading my thoughts. 
Mon Dieu ! how you see the thing that you 
wish to know!” 

“My darling, I wish to hear it, too!” 

Then she looked steadfastly into the eyes of 
the man to whom she was surrendering herself. 

“For time and eternity,” she said, “you are 
master of my existence! Oh, dearest, do not 
forget that the poor wild-flowers of the forest 
have a frailer existence than the others!” 

“Not when they are loved as I love them, for 
their own sake.” 

They retraced their steps along the alley even 
more slowly than they had descended it, his arm 
about her waist; and in this attitude they pre- 
sented themselves before Mme. de Frezolles, who 
thought within her mind that their intimacy 
was receiving a sudden development. Closing 
her book she inquired : 


246 


FONTLUCJfe. 


“Well, monsieur, are you going away satisfied 
with the condition of your property? I hope 
that you have not discovered any more improve- 
ments to make, this time.” 

“Madame,” replied Bertrand, “I am going 
away, if I may have your permission, carrying 
with me the most precious object that the Brettes 
holds within its walls, the heart of your dear 
daughter, who has bestowed her hand on me.” 

Mme. de Frezolles’s surprise was great, but 
her joy was greater still, and it was an affecting 
sight to behold this poor, feeble, luckless woman 
struggling with her emotion, so that she might 
maintain her dignity and remain mistress of 
herself. 

“Monsieur,” she commenced, “you do my 
daughter and myself the greatest possible honor. 
I confess, however, that your request — so unex- 
pected as it is — ” 

She could not go on, and burst into tears. 
Suzanne, kneeling at her mother’s side, did 
her best to calm her. 

“Oh, madame!” exclaimed Bertrand, “I hope 
that your tears are tears of joy?” 

“You must pardon me,” stammered Mme. de 
Frezolles; “they are not. I cannot help but 
grieve at the end of the happiest days of my life. 
No one will ever know all that this dear child 
has been to me. Many and many a time have I 


FONTLUCE. 


24 ? 


in thought thanked kind Providence for having 
deprived me of strength and powers of move- 
ment Had I been richer and less sorely tried I 
should not have had my daughter’s tender care, 
which has never been wanting to me for a single 
minute. And now, if you take her from me, all 
is ended — ” 

“I should be a monster,” Bertrand protested, 
“if I so much as thought of depriving you of 
her!” 

These words had a calming effect on the poor 
woman, or, at least, they served to divert her 
anxiety to another subject. ^She dried her eyes 
and tried to hold herself more erect upon her 
chai r. 

“I am ashamed of myself,” she said, “but I 
am only the ghost of what I used to be. My 
head seems to be going the same way as my 
legs. Let us talk sensibly. So you ask me for 
my daughter? You are aware that she has 
nothing. Do not think that in speaking thus I 
am trying to discourage you; I know my Su- 
zanne’s worth, and I cannot speak more highly 
in your praise than I do when I tell you that I 
believe you to be worthy of her. The world, 
however, will not view the matter through the 
spectacles of a mother’s pride; you will be told 
that you are committing a foolish action, nay, 
things even harsher than this will probably be 


248 


FONTLUCE. 


said. And, now that I think of it, you told us 
just now that you are going away, and yet you 
want my daughter to engage herself to you. 
What does it all mean?” 

Bertrand de Fontluce was also beginning to 
recover his coolness, and to have a more exact 
idea of the responsibilities that he was assum- 
ing. He replied with a smile that was deeply 
tinged with bitterness: 

“It means that I, too, have a mother.” 

“Monsieur,” cried Mme. de Frezolles, “if the 
request that you made but now was made with- 
out your being certain of your ability to marry 
my daughter, you deserve — ” 

“My certainty is such,” Bertrand interrupted, 
“that here, in your presence, I seal our engage- 
ment with a kiss.” 

He took the girl in his arms and gently laid 
his lips upon her forehead. Still holding her 
thus in his embrace, he went on : 

“.May I never more deserve the respect of hon- 
est men if the woman that I hold in my arms is 
not some day my wife. And you, my beloved, 
will you tell me, here before your mother, that I 
have your trust?” 

“You have,” was Suzanne’s grave reply, “as 
you have my heart.” 

“It is enough. If we have to wait a while, 
you will wait, will you not?” 


FONTLUCE. 


249 


The girPs cheeks grew pale, and she shivered 
slightly as these words fell from her lips like a 
long-drawn sigh : 

“I suppose that I shall have to wait — without 
seeing you?’’ 

“You are right in your supposition, darling; 
but just on that account I shall exert myself the 
more to hasten the day when I can call you my 
own.” 

“Go,” she said, “and may God be with you. 
My mother and the thought of you will remain 
with me!” 


IX. 

After dinner that same evening Bertrand 
said to the marquise: 

“We have concluded a treaty that will be ob- 
served with equal respect on your side and on 
mine. The De Frezolles ladies will remain at 
the Brettes undisturbed. I, for my part, will 
see them no more until the day comes, mother, 
when you say the word. That day will be the 
one on which I shall go to announce to the best, 
the most beautiful, the most devoted of created 
beings that you consent to receive her as your 
daughter-in-law. ” 

“Ah, ah!” replied Mme. de Fontluce, “you 
have made good use of your time to-day. That 


250 


FONTLUCE. 


matters should be carried so far as the thought 
of marriage is something that I was unprepared 
for; but under the conditions that you mention, 
and unless my death should occur to release you, 
I am afraid that the walls of the Brettes, sound 
as they are to-day, will be in ruins before you 
make your next visit there.” 

“You have the power to make me sufficiently 
unhappy without going to the trouble of invent- 
ing cruel speeches. Spare me them, I beg you. 
It rests with you whether I and Mademoiselle 
de Frezolles live and die unmarried. Let that 
suffice you.” 

“You are a young man still, my son.” 

“That is fortunate for us all. You may say, 
in addition, that I am certain of that young 
lady, as she is certain of me, and we both of us 
look with certainty to the future, to chance, to 
the unforeseen, which cannot help but assist us; 
for nothing can happen to make our situation 
worse than it is, while there is a prospect of 
many things to better it; of your heart being 
moved by a kindly impulse, to begin with.” 

“Not so. The strength of a family like ours 
consists of two elements, honor and money. 
You are living in an age when sons may hear 
their mothers discussed without reserve. Have 
you ever heard a whisper about my life? Our 
honor has been safe in my keeping. Our other 


FONTLUCE. 


251 


jewel, likewise, fortune, I will preserve and de- 
fend in the same way, but to do it I have to take 
up arms against you, my own son. Well, I will 
not shirk the responsibility. Perhaps I have 
had other battles to fight in my life, not more 
distressing than this, but more doubtful as to 
their event.” 

This harangue, a passably arrogant one upon 
the whole, ended all discussion for the present, 
and served to indicate the relations of the parties 
for the future. It is my prayer that never may 
mother and son come to know what these silent 
conflicts are. It is unnecessary to say that Ber- 
trand kept his word, and did not approach the 
Brettes within the distance of a good league. In 
the first place, he had given his promise, and 
that was reason quite sufficient, and, in the next 
place, he knew that upon the slightest infraction 
of any of the stipulations of the treaty the De 
Frezolles ladies would be mercilessly driven 
from their home. It is true that in this case he 
would regain the liberty of seeing them, but he 
could not but be aware that his visits would not 
be long countenanced by Suzanne’s mother under 
such circumstances. It was a real consolation 
to him, moreover, to think that his heart’s be- 
loved was living so near him and under his roof. 
What a bond of union between them while wait- 
ing for a nearer and dearer union ! 


252 


FONTLUCE. 


His greatest annoyance was the knowledge 
that he was subjected to the espionage of certain 
of his mother’s servants. After the day suc- 
ceeding his final explanation with his mother, it 
was noticed that he never went out on horseback 
without being attended by a mounted groom, so 
that there might not be the least appearance of 
mystery connected with his rides. This self- 
imposed companionship soon became irksome to 
him, and he rode his horses in the park without 
going beyond the inclosure, galloping them like 
a trainer over a track where he had had some 
hurdles put up. At long intervals, scarcely 
ever, he went to Melun; to Paris, never. He 
invited no one to the chateau during the autumn. 
In a word, it was a regular blockade, voluntary 
on his part, that was only broken once a week 
by an extremely short letter to Mme. de Pre- 
zolles . She would, answer briefly by the succeed- 
ing mail, informing him that all was well with 
them, and that comprised all the communication 
that there was between chateau and cottage. 

The cold resolution of this attitude was not 
calculated to please the marquise, who was al- 
ready conscious of the silent reprobation of her 
neighbors on account of the strange state of de- 
pendence in which she kept her son. It was 
reported that he kept himself immured for the 
lack of a few louis with which to make an ap- 


FONTLUCE. 


253 


pearance suited to a young man of his years and 
station. People even went so far as to say that 
he was thinking of taking service abroad, and 
the kind souls recalled in this connection the sad 
story of a young prince who left his country only 
to fall beneath the lances of the Zulus. What is 
most remarkable is that it never entered any 
one’s head that there was a love affair connected 
with this mystery — so infrequent are phenomena 
of that nature in the manners of the present day. 

Mme. de Fontluce heard more or less of this 
gossip, for this superior person had the rare ac- 
quirement of learning everything that was said 
about her, even those things that were most 
disagreeable. To put an end to it all, she stuffed 
her son’s pockets with money and told him to go 
and hunt the fox in England with some friends 
that he had there whose invitations his mother 
had not hitherto allowed him to accept. He 
thanked her for her kindness and took the money, 
but declined the remainder of the “prescription. 

‘‘I never knew life at Fontluce to be pleas- 
anter,” he said. “The first journey that I wish 
to make is my wedding-trip, whenever it pleases 
God and you.” 

Notwithstanding this great fondness for the 
country, he did not make the faintest objection 
when the dowager suggested a return to Paris. 

“If I should ask leave to remain here,” he 


254 


FONTLUCE. 


explained with a smile, ‘‘you would find plenty 
of people ready to attribute my request to under- 
hand motives/’ 

When she was back in her .hotel in the Rue 
de Monceau, which she had inherited from her 
father, the marquise, though the season had not 
yet fully opened, sent out invitations for a din- 
ner. When the appointed evening rolled around 
Bertrand had a headache and kept his bed until 
the next morning. 

“Was it intentional ?” asked his mother. 
“Must I expect to see you fall sick every time 
that I have company?” 

“I own,” Bertrand answered, “that I am not 
quite as strong as usual this year. I find that 
company is extremely fatiguing to me.” 

“Why did you not tell me that before? Health 
is the greatest of blessings; a winter in the 
south will set you up again. We will start for 
Nice as soon as frost comes.” 

The dowager was making a brave stand 
against evil fortune. This trip was really no 
small sacrifice for her. When she married a 
man who, though poor, was of good family, she 
had purchased the right to move in the very best 
society, to receive it in her drawing-room; to 
make an integral part of it, in a word. In this 
respect she had not made a bad bargain; thanks 
to her intelligence as well as to her name, her 


FONTLUCE. 


255 


position in the world was one of considerable 
importance, and, as is the case with women of 
her stamp, she clung to it more tenaciously with 
every year that rolled over her head. What was 
there to do, though, if the young marquis, al- 
ways standing in the breach at his mother’s 
side, took it in his head to desert the position 
that he was so competent to fill? With his aid 
and abetment society, which held him in high 
esteem, might side with him, and remember a 
little too distinctly that Mme. de Fontluce had 
made her entree into the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main as she had entered the church militant — 
by virtue of a sacrament. 

This woman of superior intelligence saw that 
it would be the part of wisdom to pull down her 
blinds for a few weeks while the threatening con- 
juncture lasted, but none the less she suffered 
from this compulsory inactivity. Still, there 
was one thing that consoled her when the time 
came to start : Flora Kinsley and her aunt made 
it a regular habit to spend their winters at Nice. 
There was another opportunity afforded her. 

Alas! the very first thing to greet Bertrand’s 
and his mother’s ears, as they put foot on the 
Promenade de Anglais, was the great news of 
the engagement of the fair American to a prince, 
French by birth, if not by virtue of his princi- 
pality. 


256 


FONTLUCE. 


“Yes, my dear, the matter is all settled,’’ 
added a certain comtesse, who has the reputa- 
tion of having the most viperous tongue in 
Europe, “and. you will allow me to say that you 
are a little late in getting here.” 

The marquise saw that she was likely to be- 
come the talk of the coast. 

“What, I?” she said, arriving at her decision 
with a jump. “I am only stopping here to rest, 
without unpacking any trunks. I have a little 
house engaged at Bordighera ; I shall sleep there 
to-morrow night, and hope that you will come 
and see me while I am there.” 

Such was the cause that led these two travel- 
ers on a little further than they had at first in- 
tended, but setting aside the annoyance of doing 
something that they had. not meant to do, their 
luck stood them in good stead. They secured 
a small house hidden among palm-trees and 
charmingly situated at a couple of hundred 
paces from the little Italian city. 

“The obstinate donkey will be bored to death,” 
the marquise said to herself. “So much the 
better. Ennui is a good remedy, at times.” 

Bertrand, for his part, consoled himself with 
this reflection: mother won’t be able to 

stand this life more than two weeks, and then 
we shall return to Paris, and Paris is almost the 
outskirts of the Brettes.” 


FONTLUCE. 


257 


Thus, at times, in aucieut warfare besieger 
and besieged would be seen on either side of the 
fortification, summoning famine, as an ally, to 
their assistance. 


X. 

A LITTLE less than a week after they had taken 
possession of their house the marquise attempted 
a sortie; that is, she approached Bertrand on the 
subject of his love. 

“Come, be frank,” said she. “Your head 
does not trouble you so much as it did? For, 
after all, it is the head, more than anything else, 
that is affected. Heavens!^! can hardly blame 
you for being romantic; I myself was fright- 
fully so when I was of your age, so that it is 
partially my fault if you have contracted the 
habit of dreaming with your eyes open. If you 
only knew how brief those dreams are, though!” 

“Mother,” said the young man, “you will not 
think that I am dreaming two or three years 
from now.” 

“And, in the meantime, do you think that it 
gives me pleasure to see you unhappy?” 

“I am the happiest of men! I have discov- 
ered the woman created by God expressly for 
my sake; I adore her, she loves me. Believe 
me, I would not exchange my lot for that of the 


258 


FONTLUCE. 


prince who is going to marry Miss Kinsley. 
Poor man ! He will die without having known 
what real affection is!” 

All this calm security in the future could not 
but make the marquise very uneasy, and inspire 
her with gloomy forebodings. She was deprived 
of all social pleasures, moreover, to the same ex- 
tent tha.t her son was, but then she labored under 
the disadvantage, as compared with him, of not 
being in love. There was no one to visit and 
she had no desire to go out, consequently she re- 
mained at home. She devoted much time to 
reading, without ever tiring of it; for her natural 
intelligence had been fortified by a liberal edu- 
cation. As for Bertrand, he had succeeded in 
finding a horse equipped with nearly the normal 
number of legs, and was a prominent figure on 
all the bridle-paths of the coast. On the second 
Sunday of his sojourn at Bordighera, however, he 
made an acquaintance that was to be more influ- 
ential in changing the current of his thoughts. 

When he came in from his ride that day it 
was too late to attend low-mass, whither the 
marquise had gone without waiting for him. 
The young man changed his dress and reached 
the church about eleven o’clock; they were just 
commencing to intone the parochial service as 
he entered it. 

At the same moment the organ began to play. 


FONTLUCE. 


259 


He was impressed by the power of the instru- 
ment as much as by the manner of the performer, 
very simple and melodic, quite different from 
that of the mathematical organists of these days, 
who address the faithful in a scientific language 
that is absolutely incomprehensible to the most of 
them. And yet, what assuagement the organ’s 
mighty tones can bring to those heavy-laden 
ones who disdain the consolation that falls from 
the mouth of man, or seek it unavailingly ! 
With what peaceful, life-inspiring breath it fills 
the wings of prayer, dulled by indifference or 
chilled by the voiceless hate of some wretched 
creature against the Almighty hand that smote 
him! Emotion, the gentle mother of tears, is 
too seldom met with in the two tribunes of the 
sacred edifice : the pulpit whence the priest 
preaches the Gospel, and that other pulpit from 
whence proceed holy harmonies. 

At the first notes of the grave and charming 
prelude Bertrand de Fontluce felt his heart soft- 
ening within him as at the tender appeal of an 
unknown friend. For so many weeks, for so 
many months, now, he had been fighting night 
and day, unceasingly and unsupported, for his 
own happiness and that of another who was his 
through love and by virtue of a sacred promise ! 
And now, at last, he could bend for an instant 
beneath the weight of his armor, like a soldier 


260 


FONTLUCE. 


taking breath. He could shed tears without 
their being surprised by eyes always on the 
watch, eager to catch some sign of his approach- 
ing surrender. He wept, hidden among the 
throng, steeped in the clear, deep current of the 
beneficent harmony; and in the torpor that set- 
tled upon his senses an hour passed without his 
being aware of it. 

Suddenly the doors were opened and the wor- 
shipers retired, carrying him along with them 
in the reflux. He beheld before him the first 
steps of a narrow, winding stairway; almost un- 
reflectingly Bertrand ascended it, feeling an im- 
perious desire for a nearer look at the artist, not 
so much for the talent that he had displayed as 
for the'-strange power that he had manifested of 
touching the mysterious fibers of his being. 

With head thrown back and arms outstretched, 
his hands resting motionless upon the key-board 
in an attitude of power, and his left leg extended 
in the direction of the bass-pedals, a tall, white- 
haired old man was sustaining the concluding 
chord in which the soft tones of the flutes, play- 
ing at “open stop,” were prominent. The artist 
saluted the stranger whom he saw approaching 
him with a slight nod of the head ; his face was 
radiant with the fervor of improvisation and 
drops of perspiration were standing on his fore- 
head, that was seamed with venerable wrinkles. 


FONTLUCE. 


261 


“Monsieur,” Bertrand said, “you may see the 
moisture still standing in my eyes. I have taken 
the liberty to come and offer you my hand in 
gratitude for the good you have done a suffering 
fellow-man.” 

The old man took in his own slender hand the 
one that was proffered him. Without appearance 
of astonishment, he replied in very pure French; 

“It is not to me that thanks are due; it is to 
art, in the first place, and to nature as well, who 
has endowed you with the faculty of understand- 
ing. With youth and health, art is the most 
precious of treasures. It can supply the place of 
everything; I have tried it and found it so.” 

“You are more modest than you should be,” 
rejoined Fontluce, casting his eyes on the empty 
music-desk. “The art that spoke to my heart 
but a moment ago was nothing more nor less 
than your genius, for you were improvising, as 
I see. Again, thanks. And now let me con- 
gratulate you, for you are a great master.” 

“Oh, no! nothing more than a pupil of the 
most illustrious teachers, who has toiled hard 
and for the last thirty years has had no other love 
in the world than music. You, also, love it?” 

“Passionately. And it is just your style of 
music that I love — but we do not hear much of 
it at Paris.” 

“Paris!” was the only answer that the organ- 


262 


FONTLUCE. 


ist made, in a voice that sounded like a sigh. 
He had put his registers in order and closed the 
instrument. His young visitor passed out at 
the door of the gallery without seeking to pro- 
long the interview, for the morning was passing. 
The old man descended the steps behind him 
with a tread that was still firm; it was evident 
that his hair had whitened prematurely. When 
they were in the street before the church the 
organist asked: “What chance has afforded me 
the honor of having a Parisian among my au- 
dience? Your countrymen are not accustomed 
to stop at Bordighera.’’ 

“It is rather more than a stop; my mother 
and I have taken up our residence here for some 
weeks. And you, monsieur, you say you are 
acquainted with Paris?” 

“I used to scrape the violin there before you 
were born, unless I am much deceived in the 
appearance of your age. Fortune did not smile 
on me, however, and I have come home to pass 
what years are left me and to die, down there 
where you see that little house standing among 
some trees, surrounded by a railing.” 

The conversation was continued until they 
reached the gateway of the humble dwelling, 
and there Bertrand took leave of his new friend. 

“Will you not come in?” said the Italian. 

“My mother is awaiting me. I will come to- 


FONTLUCE. 


263 


morrow, if you will allow me. At what hour 
are you at home?” 

“Always, except on Sundays during service. 
I have nothing to do on week-days, unless when 
some one takes it in his head to be married or 
buried to music. Between ourselves, however, my 
services are seldom required for these purposes.” 

With these words they parted, and the mar- 
quis hastened his steps to traverse the consider- 
able distance that lay between him and the shore, 
for the old musician’s house was situated be- 
neath the hills that skirt the city to the north. 

He had intended to make his adventure the 
subject of conversation at the breakfast-table, 
but upon his return he found a letter awaiting 
him which diverted his thoughts into another 
channel. Mme. de Frezolles complained of her 
health, a thing that she was not accustomed to 
do, ahd for the first time in her life slie had 
made her daughter her amanuensis. Bertrand 
supposed so, at least, as he beheld the unknown 
writing, and he even imprinted a kiss upon the 
paper, for he decided that the elegant tracery, 
as delicate as spider-webs, could not have ema- 
nated from the rough hand of Claudine Plan- 
tegenet. 

But the pleasure was dearly bought by the 
anxiety that presently took possession of him. 
He beheld in imagination Suzanne’s mother 


264 


FONTLUCE. 


lying dead upon her bed with her arms crossed 
on her breast, and, as was to be expected, it was 
not the fate of the deceased that afflicted him 
most. What would become of her daughter 
should this disaster happen them ! He was not 
long in finding an answer to the question : 

“What will become of her? She will become 
Marquise of Fontluce, in spite of the whole 
world, even if I have to beg at my dear mother’s 
kitchen-door, hat in hand, for food for her!” 

It may be imagined what the conversation 
was like at breakfast, with such thoughts filling 
the mind of one of the parties to the meal. Ber- 
trand did not speak three words, though it must 
be owned that no one was the loser thereby, for 
he had not a honeyed tongue that morning. 

As soon as it was possible for him to do so he 
made his escape and hastened to the telegraph 
office, which was closed on account of its being 
Sunday. All that remained, for him to do was 
to take a dismal walk on the seashore, envying 
the happy clouds which a wind that bore with it 
an occasional dash of rain was driving toward 
the north, perhaps to pass over the forest of 
Melun. As the rain increased and his melan- 
choly did not diminish, he retreated in the direc- 
tion of the city and came to the church, where 
vespers were being sung. Now was the time to 
make another trial of the remedy that had been 


J’ONTLUCE. 


265 


so successful in the morning; he entered, but 
'ustead of bringing tears to his eyes, the organ 
grated so horribly upon his nerves that his 
neighbors quietly drew away from him, terrified 
by this stranger who, in place of joining in the 
Magnificat, clinched his fists, ground his teeth 
and scowled. At last the congregation was dis- 
missed, and Fontluce went and posted himself 
where he would be likely to see the organist, in 
order to tell him how matters were and complain 
of his music, just as he would complain to his 
druggist that the quinine he sold him had not 
broken up his fever. These were the expressions 
that he employed. 

“Good!” replied the old man, with a smile. 
“You expect me to cure you, haphazard, with- 
out having felt your pulse or looked at your 
tongue. I suppose that something has happened 
since this morning?” 

“There is a letter that I have received which 
troubles me greatly.” 

“Money troubles?” 

“Alas! no.” 

“Then I see how it is. A man of your age, 
with his mother at his side, cannot be reduced 
to the state that you are in now unless by a let- 
ter from a creditor or a missive from the enamo- 
rata. You say it is not the creditor who has 
been writing to you. Therefore — Come, come, 


266 


STONTLUCE. 


young man, she will write to you to-morrow with 
a different colored ink and you will forget your 
black humors of to-day. La donna e mobile. 

“Monsieur and dear master,” Bertrand said, 
rather stiffly, “I am not aware what your ex- 
perience may have been with creditors, but as 
regards the other question I have reason to be- 
lieve that your knowledge does not extend be- 
yond an artist’s amourettes. My case is more 
serious, unfortunately.” 

The musician came to a halt at these words, 
and the knowing smile that had played over his 
features suddenly vanished. Grasping tightly 
the arm of his companion, he said: “Whoever 
you may be, may God preserve you from such 
artistes amourettes as I have known!” 

As the strange old man slowly enunciated 
these words, in a lowered voice, the marquis was 
struck by the look that emanated from his eyes, 
and that had become so youthful that the gray 
hairs which fell down along his face seemed like 
a borrowed, disguise. 

“Pardon me,” said Bertrand. “If I might 
venture to do so, I would say : Pardon us, for 
we have been reciprocally in the wrong. There 
are griefs which we bear proudly, as if they were 
honors, and which we cannot bear to see depre* 
ciated, in any way, in the opinion of others.” 

“That’s it!” said the musician; “you have 


FONTLUCE. 


267 


hit my meaning exactly. You make me think 
of my violin; I do the thinking and it does the 
talking. By the way, you must come to my 
house; I want to make you acquainted with my 
best friend, or rather my only friend.’* 

“Who knows?” replied Fontluce. “Perhaps 
you will have two in the future.” 

Never did two hands meet in a more loyal 
clasp, but the old man could speak no word. He 
pursued his way with bowed head and rapid 
steps, the deep sighs that came from his lips 
alone testifying to his emotion. ’ In a few min- 
utes the two men whom fate had thus strangely 
brought together were at the inclosure of the 
little garden where the violets were already mak- 
ing redolent the air with their sweet perfume. 
The house-door closed on them, and still without 
uttering a word the master of the premises 
showed his companion into a large but very bare 
apartment, where, resting upon a table, was seen 
a violin with well-worn handle. 

The musician threw aside his hat and with 
a noble movement of the head tossed back the 
white mane that gave him such a leonine ap- 
pearance, the appearance of a wounded lion that 
has retired to the desert to suffer in silence from 
his wounds. Already the instrument was vi- 
brating in his hands beneath the bow, and he 
had not uttered a single word, as if speech had 


268 


FONTNLUCE. 


been powerless to give expression to that which 
was fermenting within him : the passion of his 
art, and, doubtless, another passion, less fortu- 
nate, as well. 

He strode with great strides about the room as 
he played, and his hearer listened with amazed 
astonishment, forgetful of everything beside, to 
the ardent, melancholy plaint, piercing and 
heart-rending at times as the shriek that is drawn 
from one by a newly opened wound. This un- 
known virtuoso, scattering his notes about him 
in his wild course, made him think of that black 
enginery that goes rushing through the night, 
leaving upon its path a red rain of burning coals. 

But momently the rhythm changed ; this 
stormy outburst of suffering was succeeded by a 
dejected lassitude, then the instrument vibrated 
to appeals of tenderness, memories of joys van- 
ished, never to return; and, each in its turn, 
mournful striving after resignation, bitter self- 
derision, merciful peace and oblivion besought 
and obtained by favor of his sublime art, were 
felt arising in this troubled, impassioned soul. 

At last the violin was silent, and the artist 
seemed to awake from a dream in presence of his 
listener. He was uneasy and confused, like a 
man who fears that he has spoken indiscreetly 
in his slumber. He laid aside his instrument, 
wiped away the perspiration that stood in great 


FONTLUCE. 


269 


drops on his forehead, and in a breathless voice 
that seemed not to belong to that mighty frame, 
said : “ I ask your pardon for having let you see 
me in one of my attacks.” He added, with a 
melancholy smile : ‘‘ It is true that you brought 

it on by speaking of my amourettes. Terrible 
amourettes were those, young man! It is they 
that are the cause of my being buried here these 
thirty years, far from the civilized world in 
which I might have made myself a place. And 
here I am, old before my time, without family, 
name or fortune, and all through my own folly 
and for the sake of a woman’s eyes! There, un- 
less I am mistaken, is an example that may be of 
use to you. May it help you, and do not waste 
a single hour of your youth in repinings that 
will doubtless be shorter-lived than mine.” 

These words so aroused Bertrand’s indignation 
that he at once forgot the admiration that had 
held him spell-bound for the last half-hour. 

“ I hope that my sorrows will have an end, but 
I do not intend that they shall end like yours !” 
he exclaimed. “With God’s assistance, the 
woman that I love shall be mine some day, and 
until the dawning of that day I do not look for 
happiness.” 

Thereupon the poor fellow told his story for 
the first time, and poured his griefs into the ear 
of a human being. The recital took a long time, 


270 


FONTLUCE, 


and when it was ended it had grown so dark 
that the two friends could no longer see each 
other. Ashamed that he had been guilty of such 
prolixity, the visitor arose to take his leave. 

“Come again to-morrow,” said the old musi- 
cian as he saw him to the door. “We will talk 
of her again. But may I not know your name?” 

“I am the Marquis de Fontluce.” 

A muffled sound was heard in the darkness, 
like a groan, succeeded, after a short silence, by 
these words : “ Take care not to hurt yourself 

against the furniture, as I did just now.” 

The door closed and the artist was alone again. 
Instead of lighting his lamp he took up his vio- 
lin, and once more the echoes of the apartment 
rang with the mighty melody. This time, how- 
ever, it was love that took up the song, love in 
youth, bright and enthusiastic, full of hope, free 
from every care ; love, such as the old man of to- 
day had sung it thirty years before, with the 
mad delirium of his art and his youth, in the ear 
of a woman — who never could be his. 


XL 

W HEN he kept his appointment on the follow- 
ing day Fontluce found the violin .imprisoned in 
its case and the violinist seated by the fire, deep- 
ly engrossed in thought. He appeared older by 
several years than he had seemed the evening 
previous. As he entered the room, Bertrand, to 
quiet a remorseful feeling that he had, said : “ I 

am afraid that you must take me for the most 


FONTLUCE. 


271 


vulgar of bourgeois. Never a master, and I 
have heard them all, gave me the treat that you 
gave me here in this room yesterday evening, 
and I did not have a word to tell you what I 
felt ! I do not even know your name ! For a 
whole hour my talk was all about myself !” 

“ I mean that you shall talk to me again on 
the same subject. Sit down there, and answer 
my questions as you would answer your father. 
Still, if the truth must be told, it is not the Mar- 
quise de Fontluce who interests me primarily; 
but that poor young lady, beggared of all happi- 
ness here below, and soon, perhaps, to be left sol- 
itary in the world, or, at least, with no one but 
you to look to. She it is who has my pity, for I 
greatly fear that her dream will fail of realiza- 
tion, and I know the suffering that such dreams 
entail. Poor child ! How glad I would be to 
save her !” 

Then this strange person proceeded to subject 
his interlocutor to a regular cross-examination, 
asking him a thousand questions about his child- 
hood, his education, his tastes, his sentiments, 
and his youthful adventures. Bertrand, yield- 
ing to some mysterious influence, answered as 
if this stranger was rightfully entitled to know 
every circumstance of his life. When he so far 
forgot himself now and then as to speak of his 
mother with a little bitterness, the old man 
checked him with an authoritative gesture. 

After he had learned all that he desired to 
know the Italian maintained silence for some 
minutes, gazing meditatively into the fire ; then 
to Fontluce, listening with a mixture of hope and 


272 


FONTLUCE. 


amazement, he said: “You must marry this 
girl, for I feel that she is worthy of you and I 
see that you are worthy of her. Perhaps I shall 
have the pleasure of bestowing her on you, or 
rather, it will not be I, but this, here, that will 
perform the miracle.” He laid his hand on the 
black case of the violin as he spoke, then he went 
On : “ Ho not try to read my meaning; obey and 
ask no questions. Next Sunday some poor mu- 
sicians like myself will unite to give a concert in 
this city for the benefit of the poor. Arrange 
matters in such a way that Mme. la Marquise de 
Pontluce shall do us the honor to be present. 
What remains to be done I will attend to.” 

“My mother does not care to go out,” the 
young man objected. 

“ By the great heavens ! I tell you that I do 
not care to do what I have resolved upon. She 
must — do you hear? — she must come. And here 
is another very important thing to be observed : 
be careful to leave the marquise in ignorance of 
the names of the performers. And now ask me 
to tell you nothing further about all this, either 
to-day or all the days of your life. We shall not 
meet again until the Sunday is past. Adieu ! If 
I am unsuccessful there will be another sorrow 
added to my life.” 

When Bertrand left the little house he was in 
much the same state of mind that Faust was 
after his first interview with the Devil, barring 
the fact that he had put his name to no compro- 
mising parchment. He carried away with him, 
it is true, nothing but promises; there had been 
no infernal prodigies performed. He had not 


FONTLUCE. 


273 


had his lost youth restored to him, for sufficient 
reason, and he had not had the fleeting joy of 
beholding in a vision Marguerite seated at her 
spinning - wheel. Notwithstanding this, how- 
ever, his new friend inspired him with such con- 
fidence that his heart was more hopeful than he 
had ever known it to be before. 

Summing it all up, the only task that lay be- 
fore the marquis during the ensuing five days 
was, in the first place, to keep himself from dy- 
ing of impatience, if such a thing were possible, 
and next to prevail upon his mother to be present 
at the soiree musicale. The second of these two 
difficulties was in no wise the more difficult to 
overcome, for Mme. de Fontluce was so pleased 
to see her son interest himself in something be- 
side Suzanne (at least she thought so) that she 
would not have hesitated at sacrifices even 
greater than this. The only stipulation that 
she made was that she might be allowed to be 
a little late in going to the concert and a little 
early in leaving it, so that her fatigue might be 
reduced to a minimum. 

Of course, she had made up her mind before- 
hand to endure with proper resignation the crud- 
ities of an amateur programme, and the first 
pieces that greeted her ears, in fact, did assort 
worthily enough with the garish pictures of the 
public hall and the no less flaunting toilets of 
the local beauties. At last the violinist appeared 
upon the platform, and such of the audience as 
were seated in the front rows could see, much to 
their surprise, that he was trembling like a leaf. 
They would have been even more surprised had 


274 


FONTLUCE. 


they known the cause of his emotion. Bertrand 
had come and shaken hands with him two min- 
utes before and whispered these three words : 

“We are here.” 

The old musician had a roll of music in his 
hand that he gave to the accompanist, at the 
same time giving him some brief instructions in 
an undertone; then, while the piano was giving 
the prelude, he advanced toward the row of 
smoking footlights, wielding his how like a 
sword and scrutinizing the audience with a 
searching glance. Presently his eyes fell upon 
the face that they were looking for and were not 
again removed from it. It came his turn to 
play. At the first strains Bertrand’s lips parted 
in surprise, and he smote his forehead with his 
hand. That impassioned, tearful melody that 
saluted his ears was not unknown to him; he 
had sung it himself, only a few months before, 
in the little salon of the Brettes, to Suzanne’s 
accompaniment: 

“ Still, should I tell you !” 

Then the truth flashed upon him and he under- 
stood, and he began to fear that he had acted 
.badly toward his mother. He did not dare look 
at her, but there, where she was sitting at his 
side, he could hear her sighs and smothered 
plaints, as if she was suffering from a sorrow 
that she endeavored to confine to her own breast. 
It is true that there were passages that touched 
the heart with a feeling so intense as to be pain- 
ful, even to a disinterested listener, Perantoni 
has often said that he never played the violin 


FONTLUCE. 


275 


better than he did that evening; he might have 
added that there will never be a master to sur- 
pass him. And to think that such a genius is 
to perish without recognition ! 

When he had finished applause burst from all 
parts of the house with a vehemence that Italians 
alone are capable of. The calls for the artist 
were loud and prolonged, but the public was in- 
formed that the great man, actuated by a mod- 
esty that is unusual in his profession, had al- 
ready left the building. At the same moment a 
tumult of another de^ription broke out at the 
rear of the hall. The consternation among the 
•audience was great ; the burning of the theater 
at Nice was fresh in every one’s memory, and 
what threatened to be a terrible panic was al- 
ready in progress. To reassure the multitude 
one of the city officials shouted : 

“There is no cause for alarm. It is only a 
French lady who has fainted.” 

And the entertainment went on. 

When they had taken Mme. de Fontluce to 
her own home and she recovered consciousness, 
which she quickly did, the first thing to meet 
her eyes was her son kneeling at her bedside and 
almost crazed with anxiety. She dismissed the 
attendants with a wave of her hand, and, speak- 
ing in a voice that was still weak, said to Ber- 
trand: “Why did you not tell me that Peran- 
toni was to be one of the performers?” 

The young man kissed her hands and an- 
swered : “By all the sacred respect that I feel for 
you, dear mother, I swear to you that I did not 
know who the man was. There was only one thing 


276 


FONTLUCJS. 


that I kaew concerning him, and that was his 
wonderful talent. I admit that he told me at one 
of our interviews that his name was Perantoni, 
but it had no especial significance to my ears.” 

“It is well,” said the marquise, who was af- 
fected by the feeling manifested by her son. 
“Do not let the matter trouble you; I feel bet- 
ter. Leave me now to get a little repose; to- 
morrow I shall have forgotten all about it.” 

When the morrow came, however, Marie La- 
brousse. Marquise de Fontluce by marriage, had 
not forgotten the occurrence. In the course of 
the afternoon, when she had seen her son start 
out for his daily ride, she ordered a carriage and 
drove to Perantoni’s, whose address the coach- 
man, an old inhabitant of Bordighera, had 
known ever since he was a little child. A sep- 
tuagenarian woman-servant conducted her to 
the presence of the old man, and master and 
pupil were once more reunited, after a third of a 
century of suffering for the one, of oblivion for 
the other. 


XII. 

Perantoni arose with an effort from the easy- 
chair in which he was sitting, buried in his 
thoughts. The fatigue of many sleepless nights 
were evident in the dejected stoop of his tall, 
gaunt form. Supporting himself with one hand 
upon the table, he advanced a few steps toward 
his visitor and boWed as lowly as he could. 
Still, the irony that lurked in his words was but 
imperfectly concealed when he said: 


FONTLUCE. 


277 


‘‘This is an unexpected honor for a poor peda- 
gogue like me. Will Madame la Marquise con- 
descend to be seated beneath my humble roof?’’ 

Mine, de Fontluce took the proffered chair 
without reply, and for the space of a minute her 
eyes dwelt respectfully upon the old man who 
stood erect before her ; then they turned and em- 
braced at a glance all the poverty, as well as the 
scrupulous neatness, of the apartment. 

“Sit down, I beg you,” she murmured. 

He took a wooden stool, for his rooin boasted 
but a single easy-chair among its furniture, and 
resting his head upon his right hand, waited to 
hear what the great lady might have to say to 
him. In a voice quite unlike that in which soci- 
ety was accustomed to hear her speak, she asked 
him: “How long have you been living here?” 

“Ever since the time when I first discovered 
how mad I was, thanks to a word, so terrible in 
its truth. You were the one who uttered that 
word. You said to me one day: ‘You must dis- 
appear from my life. ’ Have I not obeyed you 
well? I have disappeared from the eyes of the 
entire world. You thought that I was dead, 
confess that you did ! and perhaps you thought : 
‘It is better that it should be so!’ ” 

“Oh, no!” she groaned. “How could I have 
believed that — that you were so much in 
earnest?” 

Perantoni arose and began striding about the 
room, as if the use of his legs had been suddenly 
restored to him. 

^^Fardieu f I know well that you did not be- 
lieve it,” he exclaimed. “Love, for you and 


278 


irONTLUCE. 


those like you, is only an accomplishment, like 
music; the things of real importance in your 
ej^es are money, fame, position in society. I 
threw away all those things for your sake, and 
you, to keep them, drove me from you with a 
word. There lies the difference between us two. 
But tell me, which appears to you more worthy 
of esteem, the poor little music- teacher or the 
rich young lady?” 

“Forgive me!” sighed the marquise. “But 
what could I do? What did you expect from 
me?” 

He stopped before her, and, surveying her 
with one of those looks that seem to read the 
book of the past, repeated: 

“What did I expect? I respected you as I 
would a queen, and in my heart I had all the 
poetry of my twenty-five years, all the burning 
sunshine of my native land, all the sublime 
ignorance of the poor mendicant that I was. 
You ask me what I expected ? Nothing, except 
the delight of seeing you almost every day, of 
meeting, oftener than it was good for me to do, 
your eyes challenging mine with their proud de- 
fiance. It seemed to me that this was to con- 
tinue all my life long, and in those days, beyond 
a doubt, I was Ihe happiest of men. I could 
not tell you the story of my love, and were not 
my lips ever tight sealed in your presence? but 
I could use the tongue of art to make you share 
my secret, and I shouted it aloud, with all my 
strength. Say that you did not understand. 
Say that you never encouraged me in my mad- 
ness — without uttering a word ! It was so pic- 


ifONTLUCfi. 


279 


turesque, was that romance, and there was so 
little danger in it!” 

Still in the same contrite voice Mme. de Font- 
Ince made answer: “You were speaking of your 
age just now; at that time I was eighteen. I 
had no mother to direct me, and my father did 
all he could to spoil me. At that early age I 
was constrained to move in a society where the 
examples that I had before my eyes were any- 
thing but those of prudence. It is my turn to 
ask a question ; tell me, was I the only one to 
treat you — otherwise than as a mere teacher ? ” 

“I have no recollection of. the others — what 
did I care for their coquetries? They were 
nothing to me, nothing but so many pupils who 
showed more or less interest in their work. In 
your hands alone, it seemed to me, rested the 
crown that was to ennoble art. I frequented 
other salons to gain my livelihood; in your 
father’s the only recompense that I sought was 
the softening look of your eyes, the trembling 
of your frame, touched by the divine caress of 
genius. Then, as if that were not enough, the 
fancy seized you to treat me as a friend. Ah, 
that friendship! May God forgive you for it! 
I wonder if those great trees in your park at 
Meudon are still alive that so often witnessed 
your beauty and my folly when, the lesson fin- 
ished, you walked with me to the gate? Do you 
recognize that violin-case that many and many 
a time in those days I wished at the bottom of 
the sea? How could I have avoided making my 
confession to you had it not been for it? But 
there are certain avowals that a man cannot 


280 


FONTLUCE, 


make, holding one hand upon his heart and in 
the other an oblong black box. And you, piti- 
less creature that you were, who can tell that 
you did not know that and resolve to put me to 
the test, that day when you said to me: ‘Let me 
carry the magic instrument that sings such 
beautiful songs so divinely?’ ” 

Mme. de Fontluce did not reply, but she 
touched the brass handle of the box with a hand 
that still retained its beauty. At last she said, 
with a faint smile: “I recognize the case, and 
last evening I recognized my master’s genius in 
that melody that you wrought out for me, and 
that I so little thought to hear at this time 
and in this place!” 

The master, who had begun anew to pace the 
room with feverish steps, stopped again and 
turned his eyes upon the blue horizon of the sea. 

‘‘That, too, was in your father’s drawing- 
room one evening,” said he. “We had been 
playing together and the company had applauded 
us. A young man arose and Tecited some lines 
of poetry : 


“ ‘ Still, should I tell you ! — ’ 

My eyes telegraphed the words to you as he 
spoke them, you looked at me strangely over the 
roses of your bouquet. When the recitation was 
ended you summoned me to your side by a 
glance and said: ‘My dear professor, I am sure 
that you could find beautiful music to set those 
words to.’ That night my head never touched 
the pillow, and, as you say, I ‘wrought out’ the 


FONTLUCE. 


281 


trifle. Bitter to the maker, in truth, are the 
trifles that go to your adornment!” 

“Master,” the marquise asked in a very gentle 
voice, “did they tell you that I came near dying 
last night as I listened to that melody?” 

He turned to the lady and answered with this 
other question, which fell from lips that trem- 
bled: “Did they tell you that a man watched 
beneath your windows until the late hour when 
all the lights were extinguished?” 

“You did that?” she exclaimed, tears running 
down her cheeks. 

“Good!” he replied with a smile. “I have 
done the same thing more than once when we 
were younger. There is no harm in telling you 
of it now.” 

“Oh, my God!” she wailed, “what a complete 
immolation of self you have succeeded in achiev- 
ing; and for what reason?” 

“Because your door was closed one day against 
the poor artist whose day-star you had been. 
Doubtless a friend had told you that you were 
making a fool of yourself and that a prospective 
husband sometimes looks suspiciously on friend- 
ships such as ours. How quick I was to see it 
all ! How I laughed, with the blush of shame 
upon my face, at the fantastic figure that I was 
cutting! The laugh soon died away. I thought 
that I would take up my work again; to what 
purpose ? To acquire celebrity ? And then 
what? Could you ever again be to me what you 
had been? Even then, whenever I entered a 
drawing-room— where I was certain that you 
would not be— I was greeted by the chilling 


282 


FONTLUCn:. 


looks of the mothers, the ironical glances of 
the daughters. I should have had to enter the 
arena, achieve for myself a position among the 
celebrated masters, bring back to my feet that 
multitude that is so prone to set up and tear 
down idols. Something within me told me that 
I might succeed, but my courage failed me. All 
my faculties were concentrated in one single 
wish: to come back here to this house where I 
was born and hide myself from the world for- 
ever, like a wounded animal that retreats to his 
hole to die. For thirty years I have been dying 
by inches. My countrymen affect to condole 
with me on my disappointed ambitions, while at 
the same time they laugh at me a little. But 
what odds does it make to me? I live among 
them and know scarcely anything of them.” 

“Forgive me!” the dowager repeated. “You 
have given a sorrow to my old age that it will 
never forget. If I had only known!” 

“What vv^ould you have done? What would 
you do if it were to do over again? The very 
same thing. The world goes on its way, and 
you are of the world, worldly, ever ready to 
make every sacrifice to it, spurning beneath your 
feet the hearts of others only that you may at- 
tain your end, hearts even more deserving of 
your pity than that of a poor music-teacher who 
came from no one knows where.” 

Mine, de Fontluce frowned and. stirred impa- 
tiently upon her chair with a remnant of the old 
imperious arrogance of other days. Fixing her 
eyes upon Perantoni’s, she risked: 

“What do you mean?” 


FONTLUCE. 


283 


“I mean that for six months you have been 
witnessing, without a spark of feeling, the mar- 
tyrdom of two human beings. One of them is 
your son. The other is a child whom you would 
be proud to take to your heart if she were but 
rich. They love one another — just as T loved 
some one in my time; and you watch and wait 
in the hope that the Marquis de Fontluce will be 
guilty of a dirty action, and that there will be 
one more forsaken one here on earth. That is 
what I mean.” 

‘ “So, this is how you revenge yourself on me! 
You abet my son in his resistance to his mother, 
and you reveal to him the secrets of the past!” 

“No; for rather than injure you I remained 
the humble violin-player who ought to be dead, 
by rights, and who is dead in reality. Your son 
did not know who I was when he made me the 
confidant of his trouble, neither did I tell him 
that I had ever known you. Never fear, I will 
play my poor part until the end, which cannot 
be far distant now, and it will be a delight to 
me to draw my last breath within these walls 
that have looked down upon your presence. 
Divine goodness! To think that it is you who 
are sitting in that poor chair, you, you — !” 

He ceased, for his powers of utterance failed 
him, but his black eyes, very youthful still, 
thirstily drank in the picture that was to remain 
graven on his heart until the day when some 
kind hand should close the cold lids. 

“I am no longer what I was, my poor Peran- 
toni,” said Mme. de Fontluce with a mournful 
shake of her head. “Do not look at me so, or 


284 


FONTLUCE. 


you will make me regret my lost youth. How 
youthful you are still, and how old I am! Still, 
I have led a peaceful life, with no privations 
and with nothing to grieve me, while your exist- 
ence has been but one prolonged sorrow — ” 

“And one prolonged love; there lies the secret 
of my youthfulness. You have never loved; I 
can see it by merely looking in your face. Ah! 
how I pity you. You v/ill leave the world with- 
out having known the dearest joy that life af- 
fords, without having known even an hour of 
joy like this. I would not exchange it for all 
the fortune that might have been mine!” 

“ Alas ! God knows what I would give if I 
might restore to you what you have lost for my 
sake! Do you not believe me?” 

“No, I do not,” Perantoni replied, with a 
mournful smile; “for with a single word you 
have it in your power to compensate me in the 
person of another, and that word, I know% 'will 
never pass your lips. Yes, a happy ending to 
her love, security for the future, the honor of a 
distinguished name, all that you might confer 
by a single word upon a sweet creature who is 
worthy of it all. Your son, too, would thank 
you on his knees for having yielded — and I 
would say to you: ‘We are quits!’” 

The marquise remained silent, her hands 
crossed upon her lap and her eyes looking 
straight before her into vacancy with a strained 
expression that told how severe was the conflict 
that was raging within her bosom. At last her 
answer came : 

“You do not know this young lady.” 


FONTLUCE. 


285 


“No, but I know Bertrand de Fontluce. He 
will be another Perantoni in his way. Do you 
not think that one might suffice?” 

“And suppose he is mistaken? Suppose he 
has bestowed his — his heroics in the wrong 
quarter?” 

“ In that case you shall have my assistance to 
prevent him from perpetrating a foolish action. 
I swear it to you— you know upon what! But 
you have not looked into the matter. She is 
poor, you say ; what matters it if she have all 
the virtues this side of heaven ? Ah ! you have 
no idea how wretched your son is, nor how long 
his wretchedness will last! Have you never 
seen him shed tears?” 

“No,” she said, with some bitterness, “he does 
not love me enough to let me see his tears. ” 

“Would you not prefer to see his smiles?” 

Mme. de Fontluce arose from her chair; the 
glimpse backward into the past had proved too 
much for her. 

“ Listen,” she said. “We will start to-morrow 
to return to France. I will make inquiries, and 
I declare to you that if Mademoiselle de Frezolles 
proves worthy she shall be my daughter.” 

“ Poor child ! You call her your daughter and 
at the same time I can read in your eyes that she 
■will always be your enemy. Ah ! heart of ada- 
mant!” 

“ It is true, my heart did not know what ten- 
derness was, but a single lesson has sufficed to 
teach it.” 

With an impulsive movement, a sudden res- 
urrection of her youthful grace, she thrust into 


286 


FONTLUCE. 


the old man’s hand a bunch of violets that a 
wayside beggar-woman had thrown into her car- 
riage, and using the same words that she had 
used so many years ago when her teacher was 
about to leave her at the expiration of his hour, 
she said : “ Here is your fee. Monsieur Peran- 

toni. I mean to practice very industriously 
until you come again.” 

With these words she turned toward the door, 
and the master of the house was unable to do the 
fitting honors, for he was gently weeping, his 
face hidden among the violets that had been 
touched by her hand. 

It was not until two months after this that 
they met again, at the chateau of Fontluce, 
whither the musician had come expressly to 
play the organ at a nuptial mass. 

Toward evening the newly-married couple set 
out for Italy. That was what the guests be- 
lieved, at least, and the story that was told by 
the newspapers. It is hardly worth while to tell 
how Suzanne came near being smothered by her 
mother’s kisses before she could get into the car- 
riage. The marquise gave her but one single 
kiss, but that one was worth a whole barrel of 
money, and Perantoni, who was keeping a sharp 
eye out in all directions, made a sign to his ex- 
pupil as if to say : 

“Very good. I am pleased with you.” 

Bertrand, great humbug that he was, had 
been repeating during the last half-hour: 

“We shall miss the train!” 

“ I hope that you will make a stop at Bordig- 


FONTLUCE. 


287 


hera,” said the old artist. “I shall be there by 
next week.” 

“ I rather think we will ! ” cried the young 
man. At the same time he drew his faithful 
friend to one side and said to him in a whisper : 
“ The Italy to which we are bound is a small cot- 
tage hidden in the forest, two leagues from here, 
which is known as the Brettes. This is a secret, 
though, and known to no one but yourself. In 
two or three days you will receive a messenger 
whose duty it will be to conduct you to it. Re- 
main at Fontluce in the meantime, and above all 
things, don’t give us away.” 

“ Ah ! happy children !” sighed Perantoni, his 
eyes fixed on the receding carriage. 

More than a week passed before he received 
his summons to the Brettes with a great display 
of mystery, but he did not seem put out by this 
delay, for which he had doubtless made mental 
allowance. He went to those who called him to 
them, and for once before he died was this noble- 
hearted man a witness — but in others than him- 
self — of the triumphant ending of a happy love. 

The following day he returned to his hermit- 
age and to his memories, that were gladdened 
thenceforth by a ray of sunshine. So we some- 
times see a long day of rain and gloom end in 
the tardy splendor of a glorious sunset. 


THE END- 


MOCK! NG^BJ R D ^ 
C A N A R ! E S 
PA R ROTS 
HORSES 


All who are 
interested in 
domestic animals can obtain 3 
valuable books, on their ail- 
ments and the care necessary for 
their health, with free sample of 
4 doses Fronepield’s Cattle Powder, 
_ FREE by mail, by Dr. Fronefield, 

DOGS & CO \A/ S . Phila^ielpMa,''pa^^'’ 



Beware of imitations. 


Washboards 

Make It Warm. 

Bobbing up and down over them 
is pretty hot work. That rub, 
rub, rub on them is the best 
thing in the world to warm 
0 you up and, tire you out, and 
wear holes in light and delicate 
summer garments. Why don’t 
you use Pearline, and take it 
easy ? You can keep cool — and 
yet have the work better done. 
Pearline takes away the rub- 
bing, and the washboard, and 
the warm work. It gives 
you more time to yourself. 
336 JAMES PYLE. New York* 





Carl L. Jensek’s Crystal Pepsin Tablets will cure Dyspepsia and will prck 
vent Indigestion from rich food. Dose 1 tablet after each meal. Delivered 
by mail for 50c. in stamps. Carl L. Jensen Co., 4W North 
Third Street Philadelphia, Pa. Samples and Circulars 


( 288 ) 


BURNETT 

- - - AT THE - - - 

CHICAGO EXPOSITION 


WHAT THE RESTAURATEURS AND CATERERS WHO ARE TO FEED 
THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE FAIR GROUNDS THINK OP 

BURNETT’S EXTRACTS: 


•Chicago, April 2d, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co. 

Gentlemen : After careful tests and Inves- 
tigation of the merits of your flavoring ex- 
tracts, we have decided to give you the 
entire order for our use, in our working 
department as well as in all our creams and 
ices, used in all of our restaurants in the 
buildings of the World’s Columbian Ex- 
position at Jackson Park. 

Veiw truly yours, 
WELLINGTON CATERING CO. 

By albert S. Gage, President. 


Chicago, April 26th, 189i 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : After careful Inve.stigation we 
have deciued that Burnett’s Flavoring Ex- 
tracts are tiie belt. We shall use them ex- 
clusively in the cakes, ice creams and 
pastries served in Banquet Hall and at New 
England Clam Bake in the World’s Fair 
Grounds. 

N. E. WOOD, Manager, 

New England Clam Bake Building. 

F. K. McDonald, Manager, 

Banquet Hall. 


Woman’s Building, ) 

World’s Columbian Exposition. 5 
Chicago, April 21st, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : We take pleasure In; stating 
that Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts will 
be used exclusively In the Garden Cafe, 
Woman’s Building, World’s Columbian Ex- 
position, during the period of the World’s 
Fair. 

RILEY & LAWFORD. 


Columbia Casino Co. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen: We take pleasure in stating 
that Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts will be 
used exclusively in the cuisine of the 
Columbia Casino Restaurant, at the 
World’s Fair Grounds, as it is out aim to 
use nothing but the best. Respectfully 

H. A, WINTER, Manager. 


Transportation Building, ) 
World’s Columbian Exposition. C 
„ , „ Chicago, April 24, 1893. 

Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co. 

Gents • Alter careful tests and compari- 
sons we have decided to use “ Burnett’s 
Extracts” exclusively in our ice creams, 
ices and pastry. Very respectfully, 

Caterer, for the " Golden Gate^afe,”^^' 

TROCADERO,” 

Cor. 16th Street and Michigan Avenue. 


” The Great White Horse” Inn Co., ) 
World’s Columbian > 
Exposition Grounds. S 
Chicago, III., U. S. a., April 26, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 
Gentlemen : It being our aim to use noth- 
ing but the best, we have decided to use 
Burnett s Flavoring Extracts exclusively, In 
the Ice cream, cakes and pastries served in 
‘‘The Great White Horse” Inn, In the 
grounds of the World’s Columbian Expo 
sition. Very truly yours, 

T. B. SEELEY, Manager, 
The Great White Horse ” Inn Co. 


The Restaurants that have contracted to use Burnett’s Extracts, exclusively, 

are as follows : 


WELLINGTON CATERING CO„ 
“GREAT WHITE HORSE” INN, 
THE GARDEN CAFE, 

woman’s building. 


COLUMBIA CASINO CO., 

THE GOLDEN GATE CAFE, 

NEW ENGLAND CLAM BAKE CO. 
BANQUET HALL. 


JOSEPH BUEJJETT & CO., BOSTON, MASS. 


i 






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